XML page 404 displays default sidebar and footer widgets

Hi,

Does anyone know how the solve the 404 page issue described in my previous post?

Thank you,

Ralph

Yup, I have Yoast SEO activated… do you think this plugin is causing the issue? If yes, can the issue be solved without deactivating Yoast SEO?

Hello?

Hey Kriesi Team,

Can someone please help or at least let me know whether you actually feel like this issue is worth solving or not?

I understand you guys are very busy, but I feel like I’m pretty much talking to myself here for almost a week now :) While I think that in some cases, like in my case, having the default 404 page and its Page Widgets expose every single page, is not a really good idea.

Hoping to hear from you!

Thank you,

Ralph

Hi Ismael,

I guess I’m the one who should apologize, as I got too caught up in my impatient workflow. Which is why I went quiet :)

To answer your questions:

• I found the URL because my Yoast SEO XML Sitemap was 404ing;
• No, no widgets were added to the DE widget area.

Some more details:

Just to be sure, I ran a test on my test setup. It’s pretty much default. When only Enfold and Akismet are activated, the 404 page works perfectly fine. Once Yoast SEO comes into action, the XML 404 page gets into trouble. So I can confirm that there’s something about the Yoast SEO and Enfold combination.

Once Yoast SEO is deactivated, the XML 404 works fine again.

Here are the “Display Everywhere” widgets:

• Search
• Recent Posts
• Recent Comments
• Archives
• Categories
• Meta

Do you think it can be fixed via Enfold? Or is it Yoast SEO that needs to be fixed?

If Yoast SEO needs to be fixed, it’s probably best Kriesi contacts Yoast about the issue. As Kriesi has much more leverage than me.

Please let me know if you need more info.

Thanks,

Ralph

Hi Ismael,

Thanks for your reply.

To answer your questions:

Please see the attached links to reproduce the issue. The PHP extension leads to the correct 404 page. The XML extension displays a 404 page, which displays the Pages widget for some reason.

Re the login details: Is their something specific you’d like to check in the dashboard? If yes, perhaps I can look that up for you myself. As I’ve learned the hard way, to never pass on login details :) Though my test setup uses default settings and Yoast SEO and Akismet are the only plugins within its plugin folder. Would you be able to re-create this setup on a WP test setup of your own?

Kind regards,

Ralph

Hi,

I found out Yoast SEO is 100% to blame here, not Enfold.

The following Yoast SEO file contains a comment and function which explains everything:

wordpress-seo\inc\class-sitemaps.php

Here are the comment and function:

	/**
	 * Check the current request URI, if we can determine it's probably an XML sitemap, kill loading the widgets
	 */
	public function reduce_query_load() {

		if ( ! isset( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ) {
			return;
		}

		$request_uri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
		$extension   = substr( $request_uri, -4 );

		if ( false !== stripos( $request_uri, 'sitemap' ) && ( in_array( $extension, array( '.xml', '.xsl' ) ) ) ) {
			remove_all_actions( 'widgets_init' );
		}
	}

So, when an XML or XSL URI contains the word ‘sitemap’, the above function kills the (custom) widgets and ultimately forces Enfold to load its default/dummy widgets. Change or remove the word ‘sitemap’ in/from the XML URI and Enfold will show a 404 page with the custom / correct widgets.

Anyway, I’ll report the issue to Yoast SEO. Hopefully they’ll add a check to the above function, which checks whether the sitemap URI is actually a 404 page or not… before killing all widgets. That should fix the 404 page widgets issue.

Please consider leaving this topic open, so I can keep you guys posted about any replies from the Yoast SEO devs.

Thank you,

Ralph