disable Wordpress 404 for one specific page/folder to receive actual php errors

Question

I have a Wordpress based site with an additional custom PHP application with files in it's own folders - "staff", "volunteers" etc. We have mod-rewrite in .htaccess file so we can use permalinks

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

I have a specific page in the "staff" folder, "form.php" that is giving me trouble - specifically, after Apache/PHP upgrade apostrophes in the POST variables seems to cause an issue - BUT instead of a PHP or SQL error I get Wordpress 404 page. How do I change that so I can start troubleshooting? I can not disable permalinks, the site is live.

RewriteEngine Off in .htaccess in "staff" folder does not do anything.

The first image shows what happens if the form textarea variable had an apostrophe plus space, the second shows that an apostrophe by itself does not cause a problem.

Thank you!

UPDATE: I got it down to a specific combination of letters, spaces and apostrophe

always rembember to 'select' - gives a consistent 404 error always remember to 'salut' - does not

so I think it's reserved query words(?) in combination with apostrophe that is causing the issue and if I manage to keep Wordpress out of this folder, we would not be having any issues!

UPDATE 2: the issue turned out to be a general Apache error - issues with mod-sec. However, instead of generating 403 forbidden that would be easier to troubleshoot, 404 page complicated the troubleshooting process.

Answer 1

You can add a RewriteRule to your .htaccess to instruct mod_rewrite to stop processing any URI that begins with Staff/ or resolves to Staff:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^/?Staff(/|$) - [END,NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

In effect, this should be the same as a RewriteEngine Off directive in a .htaccess file in /Staff.

Breaking down the new rule: RewriteRule ^/?Staff(/|$) - [END,NC]

• ^/?Staff(/|$): The first argument of a RewriteRule is a REGEX pattern to check against the path portion of requested URIs, in this case Staff/Schedule/Schedu-Mod_Results_test.php
  • ^ matches the very beginning of the URI path
  • /? matches whether or not a leading forward-slash is present (this is only necessary to compensate for old Apache servers - it isn't needed in Apache 2+
  • Staff matches the literal string Staff
  • (/|$) matches either a forward-slash, or the very end of the URI path
• -: If the pattern is found in the URI path, the second argument specifies what to replace the entire URI path with. In this case - indicates that the URI should not be modified.
• [END,NC]: the third argument consists of boolean flags that further modify the rule.
  • END is similar to L (last), however indicates that this should be the very last rule processed within the context of the directory: if the pattern matches the URI, don't process any subsequent rewrite rules OR rounds (thus eliminating any possibility of handing the request to WordPress)
  • NC (NoCase) makes pattern matching case-insensative.

Answer 2

WordPress has several methods for seeing PHP Errors, Warnings, and Notices. Specifically, you can set WP_DEBUG to true and enable WP_DEBUG_LOG and WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY, as per these instructions.

However, I am not sure that will fix your issue, as the 404 error likely indicates that your file does not exist, which may not generate any PHP errors. Are you sure that you are entering the exact url, on the correct server, etc?