Hello @blobmallett, If I were in your position, I would do the following 2 things. I am not sure if you already did this or not.
At the very start, I will save the permalink to see if this solves the issue or not. Go to Settings → Permalinks → Save Changes.
If not solved, then I would check if there’s a Page, Post, or Custom Post Type already using the same slug. Please also check the trash and draft. If you have any posts there, this might cause the given issue.
Hope this helps.
Here is the page working
Rugged Screens – UNITRONIX UK
and here is a clone of the same page but the URL says rugged….. not rrugged…
Page not found – UNITRONIX UK
Says page not found….
So why is a permalink rruggedscreens OK but ruggedscreens is not?
How exactly are you trying to change the URL of the page? By editing the page in Avada or using quick edit from the list of pages?
Also check which plugins you are using. Plugins can affect behavior when changing permalinks. If you are unsure, deactivate some or all of them (except those from Avada) to test whether the behavior changes.
Permalinks → Save Changes. Made no difference. There are no other pages using the same slug. It happens with any page that starts with the word rugged.
I change the URL of the page by editing the page in WordPress and clicking edit next to permalink under the title. If the permalink starts with rugged it goes bananas, but add 2 rrs or any other letter before rugged and all is fine.
Have already disabled plugins one by one to check and none make any difference. Using the word rugged at the front of any page permalink causes this problem so bugged-servers is fine but rugged-servers is not hugged-storage is fine but rugged-storage is not. So it is just the word rugged that is the cause of the problem.
There is no word filter in WordPress for any words or abbreviations. So I find this very surprising.
Have you tried changing the slug of the page in another browser? Perhaps in a private browser window.
Try changing the theme to rule this out as the cause.
Also check under Tools > Site Health to see if you notice anything unusual there.
Same in all browsers. The only things on Site health are that PHP (8.2.29), which should be updated but that would not cause the word rugged to make pages behave as they do (I have this version running on an Australian version of the same site and that is fine) and an optional module, imagick, is not installed, or has been disabled.
Changing the Theme is not really on as this site is live and I can’t just turn it to another theme whilst it is in daily use.
Why would rrugged be OK when rugged is not? Why does that produce page not found when it is found but shows no css.
When you click on any links on the defective page it takes you to the correct url but shows as Hmmm… can’t reach this page – even though the URL in the address bar is correct and if you then reload the page it works. So why is the link causing a problem?
Sometimes these things are a bit like when you have a PC problem and a good solution is buy a Mac!
With WP Staging, you can create a copy of the page and test it there.
Please try the following:
Go to Pages and find the page in the list. Then, instead of clicking on Edit, click on Quick Edit.
There you will find a field called Titleform or Slug.
Change this slug of the page here.
Save and then don’t view the page directly, but simply reload the Pages list and click on Quick Edit again for the page – is it still spelled correctly?
If so, open the page via the View link – is it correct now?
Thanks. I have followed your instructions and changed the slug from rugged-screens-clone to rugged-screens-copy in quick edit and saved it. Reload the pages list and looked at the slug which remained changed. The problem is still there – page shows as Page Not Found when loaded but is found just looks like it has no css and anything you follow from this page says not found but if you reload the URL it is found. Change the url to rrugged or just screens or actually anything apart from starting with the word rugged and it is fine – Rugged Screens – UNITRONIX UK good Page not found – UNITRONIX UK not good. The one is a direct copy of the other just has 2 rrugged in the URL not rugged.
I mean what would cause the page to display NOT FOUND – links not work and css not load just by simply having the URL as rugged-something – but change it to bugged-something or rrugged-something and it’s fine!! It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen and happens with every page that starts with rugged-
According to the information I see, the slug has not been changed.
Are you perhaps using an object cache? An optimization plugin that provides something like this? My suspicion would be that even if you deactivate the relevant plugin, this cache remains. That would also explain why the slug cannot be changed at all – something has gotten stuck. If necessary, contact your host’s support team, as some of them also offer such a cache.
There is no object cache but what do you mean by “why the slug cannot be changed at all”. I said in my earlier post it does change – when I reload the page list and then look at the slug it has changed from rugged-screens-cloned to rugged-screens-copy – maybe I didn’t make this clear. But in any case it still does not explain how changing the permalink from rugged-screens shows it as Page Not Found with no css and links to other pages that then say not found but then changing it to rrugged-screens or ugged-screens or anything other than starting with rugged makes it work normal – cached or not cached.
Thanks for your suggestion but I don’t think caching is the problem and I think you misunderstood the results of the quick edit which did change.
I already understand that this changes there. But when I look at the data record via the publicly accessible REST API, the slug there has not changed. Hence my assumption that the object cache could be responsible for this.
I would still recommend contacting the host’s support team about this. Alternatively, you could try moving your project and setting it up somewhere else – maybe it will work there, which would again point to the host as the cause.
Since we have now gone through all the possibilities and you still can’t find a solution, I would recommend finding someone who can take a look at it with you in person. You can find someone like that here, for example: https://jobs.wordpress.net/
