Hi Support Team,
We are facing an issue on our WordPress site where permalinks break intermittently and start returning 404 errors. Saving the permalink settings temporarily fixes the issue.
After investigation and confirmation from our hosting provider (SiteGround), we found that when the issue occurs, the .htaccess file contains only rules added by “Headers Security Advanced & HSTS WP (v5.2.4)”, and the default WordPress rewrite rules are completely removed. This directly causes permalinks to stop working.
We have logging in place that confirms .htaccess is being modified automatically without any manual action, and no WordPress plugin is calling flush_rewrite_rules(). Resetting permalinks restores the WordPress rules, but they are later removed again.
Could you please advise:
- Under what conditions your plugin rewrites or replaces
.htaccess contents?
- Whether this behavior is expected on Apache hosting (SiteGround)?
- If there is a safe configuration or update that prevents the plugin from overwriting the default WordPress rewrite rules?
At the moment, this behavior is causing recurring site outages, so your guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your support.
Best regards,
Priya
