While managing your WordPress site, you may encounter an HTTP 302 error, so in this article, we will clarify some concepts about this error, and offer several methods that you can use to fix and get rid of the problem.
In fact, HTTP 302 is an effective way to temporarily redirect website users to a different URL. However, if your site is showing a 302 redirect by mistake and not by you setting it up, then this is an indication that there is a problem that needs to be resolved on your site.
In the following paragraphs, we will explain to you what the code or code 302 is in HTTP requests, the reasons for its appearance, when its appearance is evidence of an error on the site, and what are the steps to fix it in detail. So continue reading the article to find out everything you need about HTTP 302 errors
What does the HTTP 302 response code mean?
When you visit any website on the Internet through the browser, the browser sends a set of HTTP requests to the server of the requested website, which in turn responds to these requests, and each response has its own HTTP code.
All codes that start with the number 3 are codes that indicate the presence of a redirect, and the code 302 indicates that this redirect is temporary, meaning when you visit domain.com, you will be redirected, for example, to dev.domain.com temporarily.
HTTP 302 differs from HTTP 301 in that the move operation in the event of a 301 redirect means the permanent transfer of 302 URLs and is used when moving pages or moving sites permanently, while the 302 redirect is a process that takes place temporarily as a result of an emergency situation, but continues unless Manually cancel the setting after the temporary period expires.
For example, if you intend to create a new page on your site but have not done so yet, and you want to temporarily move visitors to a page titled (under construction) while the page is finished, then use a 302 redirect.
But what is meant by this routing process being temporary, and when does this code become a bug that needs to be fixed?
Temporary directives are used normally on all pages or domains that need maintenance or changes in design or functionality. Since the 302 redirect is a temporary transfer of the URL, it is therefore not recommended that the transfer period using it exceed one to two weeks.
During this stage, the site owner or developer may not want the site visitors to be able to view the changes taking place on the site, but at the same time he does not want his site to lose its ranking within the search engines. So this redirect only applies to real visitors and not to search engine spiders or bots.
But a 302 redirect turns into an error in the following cases:
- When it is caused by a change within the site, but you do not intend this redirect.
- When redirecting to a wrong address that does not exist.
- When you fall into a loop of HTTP 302 redirect requests that prevent site visitors from accessing the content whether on the old or temporary domain.
- The last case is the only case in which an explicit error message appears within the browser, as the following image shows the error message within the Google Chrome browser.
As for the Firefox browser, it will be as follows.
Ways to fix HTTP 302 error in WordPress
This error in WordPress sites can be caused by several reasons, and depending on them, you can choose the appropriate repair method for you. This could be a plugin update, a plugin incompatibility, a .htaccess file configuration error if you’re using an Apache server, or an nginx.conf file configuration error if you’re using an NGINX server.
Therefore, you must first track the recent changes that you made to the site that preceded your discovery of this error , such as installing a new plugin , installing a new template on your site , or modifying any files belonging to the WordPress platform.
1- Disable all WordPress plugins
It is possible that one of the extensions that you installed recently, or an update that one of the extensions received is the cause of this error, and to be sure, you should disable all extensions in your site, and revisit the link that shows the HTTP 302 error.
Go to Add- ons > Installed Add- ons > Select all add-ons and disable them as shown in the following image.
Note: If you cannot access the site control panel due to the redirect caused by this error, then you can access your site files through the file manager in the cPanel hosting control panel , or through the FTP protocol , where you can disable the plugins easily by changing the name of the plugins folder plugins to another name such as plugins_old.
If the HTTP 302 error disappears, this means that one of the plugins is the cause of the problem. To determine the specific plugin, you must re-activate the plugins one by one until the error occurs again to find out which plugin is responsible for this error. When you discover it, you must replace it or find a solution to the problem by communicating with the extension developer.
2- Check your WordPress links settings
One of the common causes of HTTP 302 error in WordPress is that the URL and URL links are incorrectly configured. To check that the linking process is set up correctly, do the following.
1- Within the WordPress dashboard , go to Settings > General from the submenu.
2- Verify that the WordPress URL and URL fields are written correctly, as shown in the following animation:
3- Check server settings
This error can appear due to wrong configuration of the server settings, below we will show you how to solve the HTTP 302 error on the most popular types of servers, which are Apache server and NGINX server (the steps can be applied in a similar way to any other server).
Apache server
You can control the Apache server through the settings in the . htaccess so you have to review the content of this file and do the following steps.
1- You have to open a file . htaccess file located on the server under the main folder of the site (this path varies according to the type of hosting and the control panel used).
If you are using cPanel , you will find this file in the public_html folder of the main site. As for other sites hosted within the same hosting, you will find this file within folders with the name of the desired site inside or outside the public_html folder.
2- Find the RewriteXXX directives of the mod_rewrite module within the Apache server, eg the RewriteCond includes the link you want to direct incoming traffic to another link, using the RewriteRule directive associated with one or more RewriteCond directives.
The following example is a simple example of how to use the two directives together, where the inbound example.com traffic is temporarily redirected to temporary-example.coM with the following code:
RewriteEngine is
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$
RewriteRule ^ ( .* ) $ HTTP://www.temporary-example.com/$1 [R=302]
Notice the last part of the RewriteRule directive in the previous example which shows that the response code should be 302 to tell the browser that this redirect is temporary.
3- Now you have to reset the directives again within the .htaccess file , and for that you have to compare with the default values that are usually found within this file, which are as follows.
# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index. php [ L ]
# END WordPress
If you find any directive different from the previous example, you can put a sign # before it to deactivate it, then restart the server and check after that if the problem is resolved or not.
NGINX server
You can control the NGINX server through the settings in the nginx.conf file, so you should review its content and do the following steps.
1- You need to open the nginx.conf file which is usually located under /usr/local/nginx/conf , /etc/nginx , or /usr/local/etc/nginx .
2- Look for link directives, the following example is a set of directives that temporarily redirect visitors from abc.com to temporary-abc.com.
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name www.abc.com;
rewrite ^/$ http://www.temporary-abc.com redirect;
}
3- Get rid of the rewrite directives using the # sign before it, then restart the server and check whether this step solved the problem or not, and if the problem was solved, then it was caused by one of the previous directives.
4- Contact the support team for hosting your site
If you have tried all the previous methods that we mentioned in the article, but the problem still exists on your site, then we recommend that you contact the support team for your hosting.
Because knowing the actual cause of this error and fixing it in some cases requires great technical knowledge and experience. So it is better that you get help from your hosting experts.
Conclusion
In today’s article we detailed HTTP 302 response codes which are usually very normal codes, and showed that it is a simple way to temporarily redirect your visitors to another site, but you should only use it when the page resources requested by the visitors are not available.
But if your site returns a 302 code by mistake, or causes a loop of redirects, then you must fix the problem as soon as possible after knowing its actual source, whether it comes from the server side, or from WordPress, otherwise this will negatively affect your site.
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