Community pages return a 404 after changing the base slug

Marco Silva Marco Silva 5 days ago Resolved

I changed the base slug from community to forum and now every community page 404s. The settings saved correctly.

I suspect rewrite rules — what's the right way to regenerate them?

1

Strong agree. Good defaults beat a wall of toggles every single time.

Strong agree. Good defaults beat a wall of toggles every single time.

Thanks for writing this up. Bookmarking it — the kind of thing I will want to reference again in a month.

Thanks for writing this up. Bookmarking it — the kind of thing I will want to reference again in a month.

Run wp jetonomy flush-rules (or visit Settings > Permalinks and save) after changing the base slug. The 404s are stale rewrite rules — regenerating them fixes it immediately.

Could you say more about how you measured the result? I want to try this but I am not sure what success would look like.

One caveat for larger communities: keep an eye on the indexes. At a few thousand rows the difference is night and day.

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.

Appreciate the clear steps. The dry-run tip in particular saved me from a mistake I would not have caught otherwise.

Could you say more about how you measured the result? I want to try this but I am not sure what success would look like.

This is the answer I wish I had found six months ago. Would have saved me a weekend of trial and error.

This matches my experience exactly. The hard part is staying consistent once the initial novelty wears off.

This matches my experience exactly. The hard part is staying consistent once the initial novelty wears off.

Tried this on a staging copy first and it behaved exactly as described. Confident enough to roll it to production now.

One caveat for larger communities: keep an eye on the indexes. At a few thousand rows the difference is night and day.

Great point. I had not considered the angle you raised in the second paragraph — it reframes the whole thing for me.

Adding a small note: the same idea applies on mobile, just with a bit more attention to tap targets.

Tried this on a staging copy first and it behaved exactly as described. Confident enough to roll it to production now.

This matches my experience exactly. The hard part is staying consistent once the initial novelty wears off.

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.

This is the answer I wish I had found six months ago. Would have saved me a weekend of trial and error.

Following this thread closely. We are about to face the exact same decision and the replies here are gold.

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.

Adding a small note: the same idea applies on mobile, just with a bit more attention to tap targets.

This deserves more votes. It is a small change with an outsized impact on day-to-day use.

Following this thread closely. We are about to face the exact same decision and the replies here are gold.

We ran into the same situation last quarter. What worked for us was starting small and only adding complexity when a real need showed up.

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.