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WordPress Troubleshooting

How to Fix WordPress Permalinks Not Working (404 Errors)

A comprehensive technical guide to fixing broken WordPress permalinks and 404 errors. Learn how to flush rewrite rules, regenerate your .htaccess file, and fix server configurations.

Nextgen Engineering•
How to Fix WordPress Permalinks Not Working (404 Errors)

One of the most heart-stopping moments for a WordPress site owner is visiting their live website and realizing that every single post, page, and product is throwing a 404 Page Not Found error. Strangely, the homepage loads perfectly, and the admin dashboard functions normally, but any internal link leads to a dead end.

This issue is known as broken permalinks. It almost always occurs after migrating a website to a new hosting provider, changing the URL structure, installing a caching/security plugin, or registering a Custom Post Type.

Fundamentally, this is not an issue with missing files. Your data is still safely in the database. Instead, it is a routing issue. The server no longer knows how to translate the pretty URL in the address bar (like /about-us/) into the ugly PHP queries WordPress uses behind the scenes. This logic is handled entirely by a hidden server configuration file called .htaccess.

Here is the technical workflow to regenerate your routing rules and bring your internal pages back online.

1. The “Soft Flush” via the Dashboard

The easiest and most common way to fix this issue is to force WordPress to regenerate its internal rewrite rules. You do not actually have to change your permalink structure to do this; you just need to trigger the save action.

  1. Log into your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. In the left-hand sidebar, navigate to Settings > Permalinks.
  3. Take note of which structure is currently selected (e.g., Post name). Do not change it.
  4. Scroll to the very bottom of the page and click the Save Changes button.

By clicking this button, WordPress fires an internal function called flush_rewrite_rules(). It looks at your .htaccess file and attempts to write the correct routing logic into it. Open a new tab and click on one of your broken blog posts. In 90% of cases, this single click will completely resolve the 404 errors.

2. The “Hard Flush”: Manually Rebuilding .htaccess

If the “Soft Flush” did not work, it usually means your server’s file permissions are too restrictive. WordPress is trying to write the new routing rules to the .htaccess file, but the server is blocking it. (This is a similar permission conflict to the ones that cause the Not Allowed to Access This Page or Upload Max Filesize errors).

You must manually update the file using your hosting control panel.

  1. Log into your cPanel or connect to your server via FTP.
  2. Open the File Manager and navigate to your public_html (or root) directory.
  3. Ensure you have “Show Hidden Files (dotfiles)” enabled in your settings.
  4. Locate the .htaccess file. Right-click and select Edit.
  5. Delete whatever is currently in the file, and replace it with the default WordPress routing block:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
  1. Click Save Changes. Your permalinks should now be fully restored.

3. Advanced: Fixing Apache AllowOverride (VPS/Dedicated Servers)

If you are managing your own unmanaged VPS (like an Ubuntu droplet on DigitalOcean) and manually pasting the .htaccess code still results in 404 errors, the problem lies deeper within your Apache configuration.

By default, Apache does not allow .htaccess files to override the main server configuration for security reasons.

  1. SSH into your server.
  2. Open your primary Apache configuration file (usually located at /etc/apache2/apache2.conf or /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf).
  3. Find the <Directory /var/www/html> block (or whichever directory houses your WordPress installation).
  4. Change the AllowOverride directive from None to All:
<Directory /var/www/html>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>
  1. Save the file and restart Apache (sudo systemctl restart apache2). Your .htaccess rules will now be processed correctly.

A Hosting Environment Built for WordPress

Dealing with hidden .htaccess files, strict file permissions, and Apache configuration blocks takes you away from actually building your website.

Nextgen’s WordPress Hosting in Pakistan is engineered to handle all of this automatically. Our LiteSpeed servers are pre-configured to fully support WordPress rewrite rules natively, meaning you will never have to manually edit an .htaccess file just to make a blog post load. And if an experimental plugin ever does corrupt your routing, our daily automated JetBackup system allows you to restore your entire environment with a single click.