Help Troubleshooting 301 Redirects Resulting in 404 Not Found Errors

bill5 2020-12-01 22:27:32 UTC #1

Keywords: WordPress Multisite - Google Cloud Platform - Technical issue - Other
bnsupport ID: 208a1c1b-0878-794f-20aa-e3b98ea3c4fd
Description:
We believe this issue is related to how a bitnami wordpress multisite installation is processing inbound requests from redirected URLs, and might be something with the .htaccess configuration in /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/httpd-app.conf.

In trying to redirect traffic from an old URL to a new URL, we have the following:

In .htaccess on old domain (crestcomleadership.com):

  Redirect 301 /br/testimonials https://crestcom.com

This should take any request for http://crestcomleadership.com/br/testimonials and direct the user to https://crestcom.com.

Instead, it's taking the user to https://crestcom.com/testimonials, which is not a valid URL on this new domain & website, and produces a No Results Found/404 error from WordPress.

We cannot figure out how that /testimonials is being included or "passed on", resulting in the request for the invalid url (https://crestcom.com/testimonials), instead of the valid URL in the redirect rule (https://crestcom.com).

Another example:

In .htaccess on old domain (crestcomleadership.com):

  Redirect 301 /gb/results https://crestcom.com

This should take any request for http://crestcomleadership.com/gb/results and direct the user to https://crestcom.com.

Instead, it's taking the user to https://crestcom.com/results, which is not a valid URL on this new domain & website, and produces a No Results Found/404 error from WordPress. We can't figure out why that "/results" is being included.

We thought this might be related to sunrise.php, which is part of Multisite and looks like it will make best guesses about a URL and redirect a user to a close match instead of a 404 error. We tried softly disabling sunrise by changing the filename to _sunrise.php in /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-content/, but that did not seem to have any impact.

Has anyone seen this before or know where we can look for more information? Are there any log files that might have information on how those incoming requests are being processed?

Ibone 2020-12-02 11:26:14 UTC #2

Hi @bill5,

Thanks for using Bitnmia. In you apache logs appear:

[Tue Dec 01 21:08:00.740654 2020] [core:error] [pid 12952:tid 140247912339200] [client 98.245.145.118:52793] AH00124: Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary. Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace., referer: https://crestcom.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=355629&action=edit&message=1

Did you check our documentation about htacces https://docs.bitnami.com/google/apps/wordpress-multisite/administration/use-htaccess/?

Let me share with you our guide to configuring WordPress multisite
https://docs.bitnami.com/google/apps/wordpress-multisite/configuration/configure-wordpress-multisite/

Regards,
Ibone.

bill5 2020-12-02 16:14:22 UTC #3

Hi @Ibone and thanks for responding.

The referrer in that particular error seems to be related to editing a WordPress page/post, but I do see other instances in the apache error log where we get the same error without that referer:

[Wed Dec 02 15:50:21.188263 2020] [core:error] [pid 27439:tid 140248166258432] [client 88.198.242.184:57162] AH00124: Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary. Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace.

I have looked at the htaccess documentation for bitnami. We are on Google Cloud Server and not AWS but I think the setups are similar if not identical. I don't see anything in wp-config.php or .htaccess that looks incorrect, but do believe that is where the problem is, or possibly in /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/httpd-app.conf.

One thing I noticed in wp-config.php, we have the following:

  define('MULTISITE', true);
  define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', false);
  //$base = '/';
  define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'crestcom.com');
  define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
  define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
  define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);

Should the $base = '/'; be uncommented?

We checked this site for plugins that might handle redirection, and there is a "404 to 301" redirect plugin installed, however it is not running or activated on any sites.

How would you recommend we troubleshoot further to resolve this issue? Thanks!

Ibone 2020-12-03 10:02:06 UTC #4

Hi @bill5,

In the guide of configuring Wordpress multisite, there is a note.

NOTE: The WordPress Multisite dashboard (under “My Sites -> Network Admin -> Settings -> Network Setup”) lists a set of changes to be made in your wp-config.php file, as shown below. These configuration changes are already included in the Bitnami WordPress Multisite stack. Therefore, the instructions listed in the “Network Setup” page should be disregarded.

And like you said:

You change the file /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/httpd-app.conf

Could you try to revert the change?

I share with you de default configuration of that file:

<IfDefine USE_PHP_FPM>
    <Proxy "unix:/opt/bitnami/php/var/run/wordpress.sock|fcgi://wordpress-fpm" timeout=300>
    </Proxy>
</IfDefine>

<Directory "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs">
    Options +MultiViews +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    <IfVersion < 2.3 >
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </IfVersion>
    <IfVersion >= 2.3>
        Require all granted
    </IfVersion>
    
    

    <IfDefine USE_PHP_FPM>
       <FilesMatch \.php$>
         SetHandler "proxy:fcgi://wordpress-fpm"
       </FilesMatch>
    </IfDefine>

    
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteBase /
   RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [S=2]

   # uploaded files
   RewriteRule ^files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$1 [L]

   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteRule . index.php [L]
            
    Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/banner.conf"
</Directory>

Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/htaccess.conf"

And about wp-config.php

Yes, that comes our installation by default.

Regards,
Ibone.

system 2020-12-17 10:02:15 UTC #5

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

Ibone 2021-01-19 09:30:25 UTC #6

Ibone 2021-01-19 09:32:09 UTC #7

Hi @bill5,

Did you solve the problem?

Regards,
Ibone.

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