WordPress, Preview, Edit, Comments…problems solved!
August 25, 2010 by Paul McKeever
This post has nothing at all to do with my usual topics. However, having discovered a SINGLE change to my WordPress settings that simultaneously fixed MULTIPLE problems I was having, I have decided to post it here (because it was so difficult to find an answer via google).
I started to experience technical problems with my blog when I changed ISPs. They included:
1. If I tried to Preview a post that I was writing, before publishing the post, I would get a 404 error message.
2. When things are working properly, if you hit the “View Post” button on any post you have published, you will see your post. Just under the title, you will see a link titled “edit”: if you click it, it takes you to an edit page for the post. Also, if – after hitting the “View Post” button, you want to add a comment to the post, WordPress recognizes that you are the person trying to make the post, so it does not require you to type in your name, blog address, and e-mail address. Yet, I was having a problem with the new installation. When I clicked on the “View Post” button, it took me to the post, but it did not recognize me as a person logged-in. As a result:
(a) there was no “edit” link near the title of the post; and
(b) if I wanted to enter a comment, I had to type-in my name, blog address, e-mail address and message.
After far to much googling, I saw a post on a discussion board in which someone claimed that her problem was fixed by making sure that, on the Settings page, the “WordPress address (URL)” and the “Site address (URL)” were the same. My “WordPress address (URL)” was not the same as my “Site address (URL)”. Being a networksolutions customer, my “WordPress address (URL)” was something like http://www.netsolhost.com/243lkh234gh/blogdirectory, whereas my “Site address (URL)” was https://blog.paulmckeever.ca . I had not changed the “WordPress address (URL)” to match the “Site address (URL)” because I seemed to recall losing my access to the WordPress database when I tried that years ago.
Anyway, I backed up my data, crossed my fingers (figuratively), and change the “WordPress address (URL)” to https://blog.paulmckeever.ca
Result: EVERYTHING worked properly again. All of the problems mentioned above disappeared.
Now, just so you know, while trying to figure out what was wrong, I read a multitude of misleading posts saying that the problem has to do with Permalinks (one of the settings). Some people said that if you switch to “pretty links” from “default” links, that can cause a problem. Some suggestions were: switch to default links (which does not work) or switch to default links and then back to pretty links (which did not work either).
So, for all of you who are struggling to fix Preview, or Edit, or Comments problem, try making sure that – on the Settings page – your “WordPress address (URL)” and your “Site address (URL)” are the same.
Oh my God! What an easy fix! You’re right, there are so many misleading posts and forum answers about permalinks, none of which worked for me. There are others about changing the wp-config file. Others have you disable all your plug-ins and go back one by one to see which one screwed it up (a process that has NEVER worked on any WP problem I’ve ever had!). Oy, so much work.
But this was such an easy fix. I don’t know why all of a sudden having the two different URL’s made a difference, but it did. So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
Wow! You dont know how much i hated that ‘1234.netsolhost.com’ showing up on all my links. I changed both links (after backing up and sweating from fear of losing my site) and it worked out great. Thank You So Much!