Yesterday’s blog post was supposed to take me an hour or less. It ended up taking over four. I went to hit publish and instead of a confirmation I got a “file not found” notice — also known as a 404 error.
After a bout of panic that I had lost an hour of writing, I hit the back button and discovered that, thankfully, my post was still there. But how was I supposed to get it published?
The biggest problem at this point was my own technical prowess. I know that may sound backwards, but it’s true.
The fact that I have an engineering and programming background led me to believe that I could solved it.
“Honey, I Think You Should Pull Over”
It’s kind of like when you know in the back of your mind that you’re lost, but you don’t want to admit it. Your spouse prods you to pull over and ask for directions, but you just know that you’ll find your way again any second so you pridefully continue wandering.
After a couple hours of pure frustration I finally turned to Google. A simple search for 404 error WordPress publish immediately revealed the answer. To sum up the rather geeky explanation, a security setting on the server was causing my post to be scanned for threats before publishing. Believe it or not, the word “from” in my post was what was causing all the havok.
Apparently that is used a lot in database commands and so my post was being blocked just in case it was actually someone that was up to shenanigans with the site.
Heroic Support
At that point I had learned my lesson. I didn’t want to mess with the technicalities of the issue. I brought up a live chat window with the self-proclaimed “heroic support” team at Liquid Web where I host this site.
In less than five minutes, they had it solved. I have to say, Liquid Web’s support is indeed heroic. I highly recommend their services. (And yes that is an affiliate link to their site, but I would recommend their services even without the commission.)
The Moral of This Story
What’s the moral of this story? There are a few.
- I need to get out of my own way so I can create more content for this blog.
- If you run into the mysterious ‘404 not found’ error when trying to publish a post with WordPress, contact your support and direct them to this article.
- You should have a host with great service that you can depend on (and that won’t just point the finger back at you when there’s a problem).
- Before you hit Publish, always select your entire post and hit Ctrl-C (Command-C on Mac) just in case. That way you’ll have your work saved if things go awry.
Email: jason AT jasonvanorden.com
Voicemail Line: +1 877-877-7799
November 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Thanks a lot Jason!
Good heads up.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Hey Jason, thanks for the post. It was what I needed today as I too need to learn when to get out of my own way, pull over, breathe for a few and gain clear thoughts about the most efficient means to solve a problem go around an obstacle or completely remove the roadblock. I appreciate your insight!
November 5th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Oh, Jason. Do I know what you’re talking about! I do blog posting for a client. What ties me up is trying to download photos to the blog. . . sheesh! URL’s here, browsing over here, errors on the download over there. I’ve discovered, too, that if I copy my blog to a Notepad page and cut/paste from there to my blog, I lose all the extra hidden ‘crap’ Microsoft word attaches to documents. That usually gives me a clean upload to my blog sites.
I will take your morals of the story to heart and get out of my own way. I’ve just switched to a new server, and I agree: Asking for help sounds like a fine solution. Thanks for sharing!!
November 5th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
A bloke will never ask for directions! As the answer most probably is:-
sorry mate i dont live here
or
turn left then right and keep on for a mile,
then at the next set of lights turn right again
and its on your left…
You know what’s going to happen…
No Lights or its not going to be there
so why ask?
Nice one
~ Later ~
November 5th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I can relate to this article! I’m the guy driving on, struggling with Maps on the iPhone with no reception, when all I have to do is pull over and ask. HA!
November 6th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Hi everyone,
Is it just me, or am I the only person so paranoid about losing data that I write everything in Word / Open Office and only once it has been completed, spell checked, saved (at least 3 times!), do I even contemplate going to WordPress and posting??!!
Aside to that though, great post and so typical of a bloke!
PS. Kathleen – the copy / paste function from Word (within WP text editor) is very good now and saves quite a bit of time. I used to do the notepad option too.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
“From”? That’s crazy. I can’t tell you how many times I’m close to publishing and then think, “Did I save that draft?”
November 18th, 2009 at 7:13 am
I’ve had the same 404 issue but found the problem to be that the permalink is the same as the title of one of the files in the Media Library.
In my case I had an image called Events.jpg and the permalink I wanted was http://www.mywebsite.com/events/. By altering the image title to events-pic.jpg, it solved the problem.
Just thought I might share that for anyone desperate for a ‘Simple’ answer.