If you’re seeing a 404 error when trying to view individual Event, Venue, or Organizer pages after installing or updating the plugin, don’t worry – this is a common WordPress issue which is easy to resolve.

A common cause of this is because WordPress hasn’t refreshed its list of “permalinks” (pretty URLs). Just follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

Flushing Permalinks

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Permalinks
  2. Do not change any settings. Simply click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page. This tells WordPress to refresh its permalink structure, which usually fixes 404 errors for custom post types.
  3. If you are using any caching plugins on your site then clear the cache before rechecking an event on the front end of your site to see if the issue is resolved.

Make Sure Pretty Permalinks Are Enabled

The Event Genius plugin uses WordPress Custom Post Types to allow you to easily manage your events. If your site is using plain URLs (eg. ?p=123), then custom post types won’t work properly. It is advisable to use pretty permalinks on your site, which are not only more compatible with plugins, but also make your URLs easier to read and more search engine friendly.

To enable pretty permalinks:

  1. Go to Settings > Permalinks
  2. Choose any option other than Plain (we recommend “Post name”).
  3. Click Save Changes
  4. If you are using any caching plugins on your site then clear the cache, then recheck an event on the front end of your site to see if the issue is resolved.

Check for Rewrite Rule Conflicts

Sometimes, themes or other plugins may interfere with WordPress’s URL rewrite rules, which can affect page URLs on your site.

  1. Go to your WordPress “Appearance” page, and try temporarily switching to a default WordPress theme. You can do this by clicking “Add Theme” and then selecting a default WordPress theme, such as “Twenty Twenty-Five” or “Twenty Twenty-Four“.
  2. Clear your website cache and then recheck the URLs on the front end of your site. If the issue is resolved, then try switching back to your regular theme and checking again. If the issue returns, then it indicates an issue with your theme. Reach out to the theme author to let them know and ask for support.
  3. If the issue still persists with a default theme, then instead try deactivating each of your plugins one-by-one, checking each time to see if the issue still occurs. If the issue goes away when deactivating a plugin, then it indicates that it is the cause of the issue. Reach out to the plugin author to let them know and to ask for support.

Check Your WordPress .htaccess File (Advanced)

If you’re on an Apache server, there may be an issue with some custom rewrite rules inside your “.htaccess” file. To open your .htaccess file to check, you’d need direct file access to your web server through either SFTP/FTP, your web server control panel, or some other means. There are many help articles available to help guide you through this, such as this one. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, just reach out to your host for help.

After opening your .htaccess file, check to see whether any rewrite rules exist which might be causing permalinks on your site to not function correctly.

Below is a sample .htaccess file that works with pretty permalinks:

# 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

Important: Be sure to back up your existing .htaccess file before making changes.

Contacting Support

If you’ve tried the steps above and you’re still seeing 404 errors then just reach out to us for support and we’d be happy to help! Use the support form here and include the following info:

  • What you’ve already tried
  • A link to a page on your site where you’re seeing the problem
  • What your current permalink settings are

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