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[Waiting for user feedback] Translated (custom) taxonomies sometimes return 404 not found
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Background of the issue:
I am trying to translate custom taxonomies, but often find that the translated pages return a 404. Here is a link to a page where the issue can be seen: hidden link
It's gotten so bad that I've been using a third party tool (uptimerobot) to ping a translated taxonomy and alert me if it finds a 404. I did this last week (on the 24th of March) and am yet to have a day where that translated page was available 100% of the time. You can find the status page here: hidden link
Symptoms:
The translated taxonomy pages return a 404 not found error.
Questions:
Why do translated taxonomy pages return a 404 error?
How can I fix the 404 error on translated taxonomy pages?
Welcome to the WPML support forum. Before passing this thread to my colleague, I would like to share some suggestions and possible solutions for the issues you mentioned.
We hope this bug happens randomly. Please try the following troubleshooting steps after a full site backup{mandatory} and make sure the issue exists or not.
1) Go to WPML>>Support page, click on the Troubleshooting link (blue link in the middle of the page)
2) On the Troubleshooting page, please click on the following options of the *Clean up* section. Wait for confirmation of processing after each one.
- Clear the cache in WPML
- Remove ghost entries from the translation tables
- Fix element_type collation
- Set language information
- Fix WPML tables collation
- Assign translation status to duplicated content
- Fix terms count
- Fix post type assignment
3) Clear all types of caches
4) Visit Settings>>Permalinks, reasave the settings
Thank you for your answer! I've setup the staging website and went through all the steps you said. Since the issue doesn't immediately pop up, I will monitor the situation the coming day(s) and let you know if I see it happen again.
I followed your suggestions but unfortunately just now ran into the issue again (both on production as well as staging). This means the issue is not resolved, unfortunately.
I think it's best if I give you access to staging so that you can do troubleshooting yourself. How do I do this?
Oh by the way, I've setup a monitor for the staging website as well that can be found on the same link: hidden link
There you can see that both staging as well as production never had 100% available custom taxonomies in a full day (it checks every 5 minutes).
Thank you for the updates. Maybe you are facing this issue because of compatibility conflicts. So to make sure, if possible, please do the following steps on your staging site and let us know your feedback.
a) Backup your site first[Mandatory]
b) Switch for a moment to a WordPress default theme like 2025
c) Deactivate all the plugins that are not related to WPML except the ones must required to replicate the bug
d) Then check if the issue exists or not
e) If the issue is gone, activate the plugins as a group of three or four to find which one has an interaction issue
f) Switch back to the original theme of the site
