Why have my custom post type searches stopped working after changing URLs / updating WordPress?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I’ve realised that my problems could also lie with the WordPress 3.3 update.

A while ago I posted a solution to my own question about searching Custom Post Types.

At that time, I was using the URL http://www.seriouslyfish.com/dev/ whilst I redeveloped the website.

Now I’ve “gone live” and moved everything over to http://www.seriouslyfish.com.

For some reason, this appears to have broken my Custom Post Type searches. If you try searching from the “PROFILESEARCH” or “QUESTIONSEARCH” boxes, you’ll see that it’s redirecting to /search/ rather than /questions/search or /species/search.

I’ve got rewrite analyzer installed, but I don’t think that’s the problem as this URL appears to work correctly: http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/search/betta.

Any idea what could be causing this? I’m not 100% sure that the problem lies with the changing of the URL, as none of the code needed to change.

.htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} genus=([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)&species=([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)
RewriteRule ^profile.php$ /species/%1-%2? [L,R=301]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id=([0-9]*)
RewriteRule ^profile.php$ calc.php?id=%1 [L,R=301]

RewriteRule ^kb.php$ /knowledge-base/ [L,R=301]

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

wp-config.php (or, a couple of the lines in it – nothing else relating to URLs exists in the file)

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://www.seriouslyfish.com');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://www.seriouslyfish.com');

the form actions

PROFILESEARCH

<h1 class="profilesearch">PROFILE<span class="white">SEARCH</span></h1>
<form id="profilesearch" action="<?php echo home_url( '/species/' ); ?>" method="get">
    <input type="text" size="50" class="default-value" value="SEARCH" name="s" />
    <input type="submit" value="GO" class="profilesearch_submit" />
    <label style="width: 180px;">SEARCH FISH SPECIES PROFILES</label>
</form>

QUESTIONSSEARCH

<h1 class="profilesearch">QUESTION<span class="white">SEARCH</span></h1>
<form id="profilesearch" action="<?php echo qa_get_url('archive'); ?>" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="type" value="profile" />

    <input type="text" size="50" class="default-value" value="<?php the_search_query(); ?>" name="s" />
    <input type="submit" value="GO" class="profilesearch_submit" />
</form>

GLOSSARYSEARCH

<div class="glossary" href="#">
    GLOSSARY &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong class="dkblue">&#9660;</strong>
    <span>
        <form action="<?php echo home_url( '/glossary/' ); ?>" method="get">
            <p style="font-size:12px;">SEARCH<strong class="dkblue">GLOSSARY</strong></p>
            <input type="text" name="s" value="" />
            <input type="submit" value="GO" class="glossary_submit" />
        </form>
        <div class="glossaryletters">
            <a href="http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/glossary/a/">A</a>
...
            <a href="http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/glossary/z/">Z</a>
            <div class="clear"></div>
        </div>
    </span>
</div>

custom_rewrite function

/* --- rewrite rules for searches...*/
function custom_rewrite( $wp_rewrite ) {
    $species = array(
        '(species|glossary)/search/(.+?)(/page/([0-9]+))?/?$'      =>  'index.php?post_type=".$wp_rewrite->preg_index(1)."&s=".$wp_rewrite->preg_index(2)."&paged='.$wp_rewrite->preg_index(4)
    );  

    $wp_rewrite->rules = $species + $wp_rewrite->rules;
}
// refresh/flush permalinks in the dashboard if this is changed in any way
add_filter( 'generate_rewrite_rules', 'custom_rewrite' );

Thanks in advance,

It’s possible that, after moving the site, you hadn’t updated WordPress’ understanding of where the site is located. You might want to try adding the following to your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://www.seriouslyfish.com');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://www.seriouslyfish.com');

This will override the settings in the database. WordPress uses the location settings to direct rewrite traffic, so this might solve the problem. I’m guessing this because you say that things were working properly before you moved the site.

Maybe it would make sense to try re-checking your .htaccess file as well? Maybe something there is redirecting improperly?

It might be a good idea as well to check the action URL on the form. Is that being generated by the a plugin, WordPress proper, or by something else? If it’s under your control and can be re-written somehow, maybe you don’t need the manual redirection being used in the answer you link to at the top of your question?

Sorry if I’m grasping at straws here, but it’s difficult to debug this without being able to poke the code and see what’s going on.