Background of the issue:
I’m experiencing an issue with the French version of my WooCommerce store. All French product category URLs are returning 404 errors, even though the categories are translated using WPML. I’m using WPML with WooCommerce and WooCommerce Multilingual & Multicurrency. The categories are correctly translated in the backend, and the slugs seem fine. Product translations are also in place and correctly linked to the translated categories. The issue only affects the French version. The default language (Dutch) works perfectly. I’ve already tried saving the permalinks again under Settings → Permalinks, but this didn’t fix the problem. I also cleared all caches and rebuilt the WPML cache, without success. Link to a page where the issue can be seen: hidden link
Symptoms:
All French product category URLs are returning 404 errors. The issue only affects the French version, while the default language (Dutch) works perfectly.
Questions:
Why are the French product category URLs returning 404 errors?
How can I resolve the 404 error issue for the French version of my store?
I double-checked your settings, but couldn't find anything causing this behavior. This indicates that there's possibly a conflict with a 3rd party plugin, or with your theme.
To verify that, I need you to please provide me with a staging version of your website. You can use WP Staging or other method of your choice to create it. You can exclude the media library from the staging version, as it's not relevant here.
Please keep the same user you shared on the staging website, so I can access it. Send me the link here, when you're done. Thanks in advance for your cooperation 🙂
Thank you for sharing. Please don't make any changed to the staging website, as I sent it for analysis. I will be back once I have feedback. Thank you for your patience.
I sent your ticket to triage, we made some initial analysis. The developers told me that the product category slug should be different from the regular WordPress slug. I ensured that they were different, but the issue persisted.
I know escalated it to second tier, with a copy of your website, which developers will download to analyze more thoroughly. That might take a few days, it seems there's an underlying issue causing this behavior. I appreciate your patience.
We are still investigating. The issue seems to be very specific to your client's website, as we were able to fix it on copies of it, but not directly on the website itself.
We are only using the staging website you provided, hidden link and copies of it, so feel free to revert to a backup on the production one. I apologize for not having a solution yet, I forwarded the urgency to the 2nd tier support and will get back to you as soon as I hear from them.
The required fields can be found below the comments section. The information you enter is private, i.e. only you and I can see it and have access to it.
Please make a backup copy of the site files and database before giving us access.
- If you do not see the wp-admin/FTP fields, this means your post and site login details are being made PUBLIC. DO NOT post your website details if you do not see the required wp-admin/FTP fields. If you do not, ask me to enable the private box. The private box looks like this:
It seems the staging website disappeared, after you restored the backup. Can you please recreate a staging version and send us access there? We will check how to prevent the issue from happening, after updating all plugins.
Please ensure that the user you shared previously exists on staging, and keep it with the same URL (hidden link). Let me know. Thank you.
