We love WordPress! Not only because it is a robust CMS, but also because of the enormous community and millions of plugins available. Often though, plugins can cause incompatibility issues with each other. If you are experiencing difficulties connecting or publishing to your WordPress site, we recommend using this help article on common problems and their solutions to both diagnose and solve issues you may be experiencing.
In this article:
Troubleshoot your website
1. URL mismatch
When connecting your WordPress website StoryChief will ask you for your website URL.
Entering your URL with http:// of https:// makes a difference.
http://yourdomain.com
https://yourdomain.com
2. Custom 404 plugins
We have seen issues arising when people use a custom 404 plugin in WordPress.
The solution is to add an exception for: http(s)://yourdomain.com/wp-json/storychief/webhook
3. Under construction plugins/password protected
Most under-construction plugins will also disable the WordPress API.
The solution is to disable the plugin. This usually means that your website is ready to go live.
If your website is protected with a username and password using a .htaccess file, you may be able to still connect by using this address format for your WordPress URL field: http(s)://username:password@www.example.com/.
Depending on the plugin, a setting might be available to enable WP API. If so you can enable it that way as well.
4. Caching plugins
Add an exception for: http(s)://yourdomain.com/wp-json/storychief/webhook
Also exclude our user agent: Story Chief
5. Firewall (plugins)
Add an exception to your Firewall for StoryChief. See this article regarding adjusting a Firewall.
6. Disabled WP-Rest
Check to see if the WordPress Rest API is disabled. You tell if it is by visiting
http://yourdomain.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts
This page should show something similar to this:
If you received an error, it means the WordPress Rest API is disabled.
If the WordPress Rest API is disabled on purpose, you can add an exception to the rule by adding a conditional for StoryChief. In case the filter rest_authentication_errors was implemented it's as easy as adding line 12 to your existing function.
If the WordPress Rest API is not intentionally disabled, you can often solve it by activating your permalinks in WordPress.
Visit "Settings" ➜ "Permalinks" within WordPress and without making any changes click "Save changes". This causes WordPress to flush its rewrite rules, and can often resolve issues like this. Think of it as giving WordPress a gentle nudge to say “Hey, I think you’re a little confused.”
7. Disabled pretty permalinks in WordPress
Without pretty permalinks enabled in WordPress the WordPress JSON API nor StoryChief can work properly.
Double-check your website does not have the option "plain" set as the permalink setting.
8. A conflict with a different installed plugin
Temporarily disable all plugins on the site except for StoryChief, then re-enable them one by one, checking the connection as you go. This will help narrow down whether or not a particular plugin is interfering with the WP REST API. If you’re able to isolate one or more plugins causing issues with the REST API, we recommend installing any available updates for them and/or reaching out to those plugin developers and letting them know.
9. A conflict with your theme
Temporarily switch to one of the default WordPress themes (e.g. Twenty Twenty), then check the connection again. If it's still not working, then it’s unlikely to be anything within the theme causing issues. If switching to a default WordPress theme resolves the issue, then the root cause is likely in your site's theme. We recommend reaching out to your developer or the place where you purchased it. If there’s anything in the theme’s code that might be conflicting with the REST API, they’ll want to know so they can fix it.
10. Publishing results in "Operation timed out after"
This error typically shows when your WordPress website has cron jobs configured to run on page requests. When StoryChief publishes to your website, your website decides to first run some cron tasks, which take a very long time to respond. This can be fixed by switching cron jobs to be run via a crontab, this will also greatly improve the speed for any of your visitors. More info in the WordPress docs.
If the issue persists, something else greatly impacts your website's speed and should be addressed.
11. Publishing works, but "No URL received"
Sometimes publishing is succesfull, yet the website might return "No URL received" and doesn't have the article live on the website. One of the possible causes is a database error, such as having an emoji. Removing the emoji should resolve this.
12. The response received back from your website is not correct.
In this case, go to WordPress to Settings -> Permalinks and make sure the Permalink structure is not set to "Plain". The platform can't make sense of this structure type.
