WordPress Archive Permalink Problem — no solution

Update: SOLVED! Dagnabit! Apparently, disabling ONLY my Robots Meta plugin did the trick! Db0 is my lifesaver!

A warning by Google Webmasters alerted me to a problem I didn’t realize until quite recently. I have tried for the past three days to figure out why my monthly Archives link stopped working the way it suppose to. Have a look at my sidebar, scroll down until you see my Archives section, and click on, let’s say, my March 2008 posts archive. You’ll notice that it does a redirect to my main index page, instead of listing out the posts for March 2008. Strangely, my Categories and Tags permalinks are working as normal.

I’ve tried the following fixes that I found when scouring the Web to solve this:

1. Adding “/category” and “/tag” in the Categories and Tag permalink setting. I did that, but the problem didn’t run away.
2. Resetting the Permalinks to default. Nope, that didn’t repair the Archives, either. Again, Categories and Tags, as well as single posts and pages reflected the default setting and worked.
3. Inserting “/index.php” before the custom and default permalink. Didn’t work, either. Besides, I’m using a Linux hosting, and index.php is usually used as a fix for those hosting under Windows.
4. Disabled all my plugins. Every last one of them. That didn’t work.
5. Reset my .htaccess file. I backed up my original .htaccess file, emptied out the one in the server, and got the WordPress Permalinks do a fresh rewrite on the server’s .htaccess.Though the fresh Permalinks setting appeared in the .htaccess files, my Archives links still didn’t work.
6. Overwrite wp-includes/rewrite.php to those in versions WP2.3.3 and WP2.5, fixes and otherwise. That just caused my blog to be ridden with so much call function errors, so obviously that didn’t work, either.

I’m at a loss. I’d like to downgrade to WordPress 2.3.3, but I didn’t have my version 2.3.3 database backup, and I dread what happens if I do downgrade. I expect it will break everything in my blog.

Sheesh. I made it clear here and here how much I disliked these recent “improvements” that were done since WordPress 2.5, and I should have stuck to my guts on staying with WP 2.3.3 if I were not so worried about missing out on all those security patches.

What frustrates me the most is that I tried to recreate the problem in my local sandbox to no avail! Don’t tell me that after all these while I thought I was expert enough in WordPress, my brain has now regressed to a WP level n00b!

HELP!

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Check out my other posts: « Sabahan Bloggers Gathering 2008 is over / LornaTimbah.com »

Posted on 7 August, 2008 under Discovering WordPress and tagged with permalinks, wordpress