404 Error on events with multi-days

Howdy Glenn,

Thanks for sharing a link to your site. That was really helpful in isolating the issue. I am rather certain that this is the result of a plugin conflict, or perhaps a conflict with your theme. The theme is clearly unlikely since you have already tried switching, but we can not rule it out just yet.

The reason I say this is likely a plugin conflict is because I have seen the issue before a few times. What happens is a plugin or theme uses the PHP function date_default_timezone_set. But, WordPress itself uses that function in wp-settings.php, setting it to UTC. When another piece of code changes this, they change a WordPress constant. In so doing they can cause glitches sitewide, including in plugin like ours that use WP constants.

We have a nice tutorial for errors like this that is worth keeping in mind. But before you walk through that, if I were you I meticulously try a full conflict test. I bet that will reveal a conflicting plugin or perhaps your theme, and once it’s revealed let us know what it is. There might be a simple fix. Plus we can reach out to the theme autho.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!

– Brook

Howdy Glenn,

I meant I bet my debugging reputation. 🙂 Sorry I didn’t think that might be a localized expression, it’s possible it’s not common in your country or area.

As I mentioned I have switched off all except the 3 plungins I have from you guys. (The events calendar, pro and community events) I run rocket to customise the front screen to show by default as photo.

Thanks for elaborating. When you said you have “removed all plugins” I did not quite know how to interpret that. Obviously you had not removed every plugin from your site. But, now I understand that you were saying you had disabled all of them except the three Tribe ones, Evidently Event Rocket as well, and also some kind of antispam one are now enabled. Thanks for clarifying, very helpful.

Did you notice the URL it is trying to display when clicked?

I definitely did. That is part of the reason why I am rather convinced it is the date_default_timezone issue. That issue can manifest itself in two ways:

1) It messes with an event when the event is being pulled from the database and displayed. Simple disabling the conflicting bit of code (plugin or theme) fixes it.

2) It interferes with the post when it is being saved to the database. When this happens you must not only disable the conflicting bit of code (plugin or theme), you must also resave the post. Sometimes you even need to delete the post, and save it again from scratch.

We are very likely at option #2. While you have every non-Tribe plugin disabled and are running Twenty Thirteen as your theme, try editing the Lion King event. Maybe add the word “test” at the end of the event, then click Update. In every other instance I have seen with your exact symptoms, it will fix the problem. You will need to do this with every event that 404s though, unfortunately. Other plugins really should not being changing the WordPress constant by using the PHP function date_default_timezone_set. It’s not just bad practice, it’s about the worst practice you can have. When they do, it can involve a bit of elbow grease to clean up after them.

To be clear, there are numerous symptoms you share with others who have experienced date_default_timezone_set woes. First and foremost is that this does not affect every event, only certain recurrences. It does not affect the first few events in a recurrence series. To confirm this click See All for the Lion King series, then click on any of the first few events. They all begin at 8pm, and do not suffer form the issues. But those later in the series move to an hour later, 9pm, and they all 404. This is 100% inline with the date_default_timezone_set issue.

Are we closer to the same page now? Does editing and resaving the event fix it?

– Brook

Thanks for reporting back Glenn.

That is interesting the Technology event was fixed as well. There are certainly some possibilites that could cause that. First and foremost is that permalinks were not fully flushed. This can even happen when you do all the proper steps to flush them. Sometimes a server with caching configured will continue caching the old ones even after they’re flushed. Eventually though, it will clear the cache you just have to give it time.

To be blunt, there is almost no question whatsoever that this is date_default_timezone_set issue. That is the root cause. This issue arises when another plugin breaks a fundamental part of WordPress, presumably unwittingly. When it breaks WordPress, your site doesn’t function properly. In this case the portions of your site which play with dates and times cease functioning as expected. We have done our best to build up a veritable firewall against these sort of attacks by other plugins, but it is not easy. The second thing we are doing is reaching out to any plugin authors who are running destructive pieces of code like that and seeing if we can work with them to fix their plugin.

I am happy things are working well for you now. 🙂 I would not be surprised though if once you enable all of your plugins the issue resurfaces. If that does happen I think the easiest way to proceed will be if you can upload a copy of your /wp-content/plugins/ directory somewhere. Assuming you don’t mind doing that, I can then search through your plugins directory for “date_default_timezone_set”, and which plugin is setting it to something other than UTC.

Please let me know if you have any other questions, Glenn. I would love to answer them and clarify anything I can. Cheers!

– Brook