Rankmath causes critical error after duplicating homepage - Support

Resolved Paul Welling
6 months, 3 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Few days ago I suddenly couldn’t edit my homepage https://wta.nl/ anymore. I got the message “There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions.” Only the homepage was affected, all other pages can be edited without problem.

In order to solve the problem I’ve duplicated the homepage. After that I was able to edit the duplicate, but still not the original homepage. I then changed the WordPress title ‘Home’ of my original homepage into ‘Home2’ and changed the slug. After that I changed the title of the duplicate homepage ‘Home (copy)’ into ‘Home’ and changed the slug to ‘home’ and I published the page.

First I got a notification in WordPress backend from Rankmath that a slug was changed and that I could set a new redirection. I deleted my original homepage and deleted the redirection, associated with that old homepage, in Rankmath. It didn’t go smooth. I can’t recall exactly, but the notification kept coming, although I clicked it away. After that I checked the title and slug from the new homepage again and everything seemed fine.

I now CAN edit the new homepage, but when viewing my homepage I get a critical error: “There has been a critical error on this website.” The only solution is disabling Rankmath, then the homepage works fine again.

I don’t understand what went wrong. I’ve used Rankmath (free) without problems for two months, but now it suddenly causes a critical error. Somehow I think I messed up with changing slugs or redirections, but I don’t know how.

I hope you can help me, because I have a bit panic now… I’ve added my WordPress login in Sensitive Data.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

RankBot
6 months, 3 weeks ago
Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with your homepage and the critical error message. It sounds like there may be a conflict or misconfiguration related to the changes you made with the slugs and redirections in Rank Math.

Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the issue:
1. Check for Plugin Conflicts: Sometimes, conflicts between plugins can cause critical errors. You can perform a quick conflict check by disabling all other plugins except Rank Math and see if the issue persists. If it resolves, enable the plugins one by one to identify the conflicting plugin.
2. Review Redirection Settings: Since you mentioned changing slugs and deleting redirections, ensure that there are no lingering redirection rules that might be causing issues. Go to Rank Math SEO → Redirections and check for any active redirects that might still point to the old homepage.
3. Error Logs: Check your server’s error logs for any specific messages related to the critical error. This can provide more insight into what might be causing the issue.
4. Restore Previous Settings: If possible, revert any recent changes you made to the homepage settings or redirections to see if that resolves the issue.
5. Enable Debugging: You can enable debugging in WordPress to get more detailed error messages. To do this, add the following lines to your wp-config.php file:
```
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );
```
  After enabling this, check the wp-content/debug.log file for any errors that occur when you try to access the homepage.
If after trying these steps you are still experiencing issues, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will take over and assist you further.

Thank you for your patience, and we hope to help you resolve this soon!
Rakibuzzaman Siam
6 months, 3 weeks ago

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us and we are sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

Can you please share the error log with us?

Having the error log file will give a clear idea of why this might be happening.

You can follow this guide to enable debugging in WordPress https://wordpress.org/support/article/debugging-in-wordpress/ or you can get in touch with your web host, and they will help you locate the log file.

Looking forward to helping you.

Thank you.

Paul Welling
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hi Raki, glad you reply.

I have debugged my WordPress. In the error log (I assume you mean debug.log) I only see one entry:

[31-Oct-2024 21:27:32 UTC] Cron reschedule event error for hook: action_scheduler_run_queue, Error code: invalid_schedule, Error message: Event schedule does not exist., Data: {"schedule":"every_minute","args":["WP Cron"],"interval":60}

So what happens?
When Rankmath is deactivated, I can edit my homepage (and all other pages) and view the page in a browser.
When I activate Rankmath, I can edit my homepage (and all other pages), but I get the critical error when viewing my homepage in a browser. I can still view my other pages in a browser though, when Rankmath is still active.

I only have a few plugins. I have deactivated all and then reactivated each one individually. Only Rankmath gave this critical error.

I’m not a professional web designer, so I don’t know if the entry in the debug.log has anything to do with Rankmath. But still, it’s the only plugin that I have that seems to cause the problem when I activate it.

Hope you can help, because I think that Rankmath is really a great tool.

Ike
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

In this case, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.

Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/

We really look forward to helping you.

Paul Welling
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hi Ike,

I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?

Thank you.

Jeremy
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

The issue is caused by a corrupted schema on your homepage. We have gone ahead and removed it and added a new Article schema with the default settings.

The issue has gone away and you should be able to edit the page now. Please check fro your end.

Hope that helps.

Paul Welling
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hi Jeremy. Wow, thanks for your help! The site works perfectly again! I’m very grateful!!

Could you tell me what the issue was exactly? You say: “The issue is caused by a corrupted schema on your homepage. We have gone ahead and removed it and added a new Article schema with the default settings.”

What is an Article schema? Does it have anything to do with Rankmath? Is there a possible reason why the schema got corrupted, so I can prevent it in the future? And is the corrupted schema related to the error message in the debug.log “action_scheduler_run_queue, Error code: invalid_schedule, Error message: Event schedule does not exist”?

Ike
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

Perhaps the former schema article schema on the homepage was corrupted during the duplication process. We removed that schema and created a new one. You can learn more about the article schema here: https://rankmath.com/kb/article-schema/

Regarding the debug log error with action_scheduler_run_queue, it’s likely unrelated to the schema issue. However, if you see this error persist, we recommend checking with your hosting provider as it could be linked to WordPress scheduling tasks.

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.

Thank you.

Paul Welling
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hi Ike,

Thanks for your explanation. I know now what you mean with the article scheme, which is of course a feature from Rankmath. And thanks for creating a new one. Homepage works flawlessly again.

Regarding the debug log error with action_scheduler_run_queue, it’s likely unrelated to the schema issue. However, if you see this error persist, we recommend checking with your hosting provider as it could be linked to WordPress scheduling tasks.

I built my new website a few months ago. I can remember that I had this issue before. As I think of it, I don’t think I was even using Rankmath at that time. The issue was that I suddenly couldn’t open my homepage in the backend editor anymore. All other pages I still was able to edit. The solution back then was to duplicate the homepage. That went without problems. But when the issue came up again a few days ago, I tried the same solution: duplicating the homepage. But this time I used Rankmath and it all went wrong. Perhaps it was my own mistake, because after duplicating I messed around with the slugs of the original home page and the duplicate. I may have broken something. Or maybe Rankmath has a problem with duplicating a homepage, I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m very glad that you could help me. And I’ll certainly contact my hosting provider when the original issue happens again. Cheers from The Netherlands!

Ike
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

We’re glad to hear that your homepage is now working flawlessly.

We appreciate your feedback.

This ticket will be closed now, but if you ever have another question or need any help in the future, please don’t hesitate to create a new forum topic. We’ll be more than happy to assist you again.

Thank you for choosing Rank Math and have a wonderful day!

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

The ticket ‘Rankmath causes critical error after duplicating homepage’ is closed to new replies.