404 Error On Category and Tags Pages

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Okay So I’m facing a weird problem as i’m receiving 404 errors on blog category and tag pages.
I’m using custom theme which includes:

  • tag.php
  • category.php
  • archive.php
  • home.php
  • index.php and
  • 404.php.

The Blog archive is working fine but when i try to load tag pages or category pages i’m being redirected to 404.php template file.

Also there is one other weird problem which i’m facing if i remove 404.php file from my theme folder the category and tag links are working fine and loads content from archive.php but it shows page not found on page title and error404 class is added inside the body tag of that page.

Here is the list of items that i’ve tried so far to solve the issue:

  1. Refreshed Permalink Structure.
  2. Applied Category and Tag Base.
  3. Changing the theme to twentyseventeen in which everything was fine
  4. All the code in my header and footer.php file follows wordpress theme guidelines.

Please suggest me a solution that might help to solve this as it works fine without 404.php. The Blogs and Categories on website are imported from other website using WordPress importer.

Question Update: Why Does WordPress redirects to 404.php even tough files category.php, archive.php and index.php are present inside WordPress theme folder on category or tag pages ??

4 s
4

I know this is an old question but I was having the same issue in a theme I inherited and came across this question in my search for answers.

In my particular case, I found the following PHP code included in the theme’s function.php file:

if( is_category() || is_date() || is_author() ) {
   global $wp_query;
   $wp_query->set_404(); //set to 404 not found page
}

This code redirects any category, date, or author archive page to a 404 error (which brings up your 404 theme template). You may want to search for something similar in your theme (assuming you haven’t already figured this out).

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