Pagination hitting 404 page on /page/4

Question

This is a bit of a headscratcher.

So, I am using the WP Download Manager Pro plugin that creates a custom post type wpdmpro.

I have pages for each category, and using the loop, I loop through each post with a post-type of wpdmpro.

<?php
    $paged = ( get_query_var('paged') ) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
    $args = array(
        'orderby'           => 'date',
        'order'             => 'DESC',
        'post_status'       => 'publish',
        'posts_per_page'    => 2,
        'paged'             => $paged,
        'post_type' => 'wpdmpro', 
        'wpdmcategory' => $category->category_nicename,
        'tag' => $cat_tag
    );
    query_posts($args)
?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
   /* content goes here */
<?php endif; ?>
<?php else : ?>

    <div class="row">
        <h2 class="center">Not Found</h2>
        <p class="center">Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.</p>
        <?php get_search_form(); ?>
    </div>

<?php endif; ?>

I have a total of 11 posts within a particular category I am testing, so I would expect 6 pages?

Page 1,2 & 3 work fine. However, when I hit /page/4 I am greeted with a 404 page?

Funny thing is, that if I were to change posts_per_page to let's say 20, so I would have 1 page. If I were then to go to /page/2 or /page/3 I do not get a 404 page, instead I get the Not found element with the search form?

Now, at the beginning of this project, I was using the standard Wordpress post type that has a total number of 34 posts. When I bring that post number down to 29 now /page/3 Doesn't work, so, somehow, the pagination is still linked to the old post type and the posts that still currently reside there and I have no idea where this may be linked up?

Trying with 'post_type' => 'post', does render the same result, that if I have 34 posts, /page/4 does not work.

Just a few things to add in case they are somehow linked.

In my permalinks settings, I have a custom structure of

/%category%/%postname%/

and my default category base is .

In my WP Download Manager Settings, my WPDM Category URL Base is .

I also have these 2 filter functions, that were copied from answers on here, and I am quite new to Wordpress so I am not sure of the potential repercussions of using these are?

add_filter('category_rewrite_rules', 'vipx_filter_category_rewrite_rules');
add_filter('user_trailingslashit', 'remove_category', 100, 2);

function vipx_filter_category_rewrite_rules($rules) {
    $categories = get_categories(array('hide_empty' => false));

    if (is_array($categories) && !empty($categories)) {
        $slugs = array();
        foreach($categories as $category) {
            if (is_object($category) && !is_wp_error($category)) {
                if (0 == $category - > category_parent) {
                    $slugs[] = $category - > slug;
                } else {
                    $slugs[] = trim(get_category_parents($category - > term_id, false, '/', true), '/');
                }
            }
        }

        if (!empty($slugs)) {
            $rules = array();

            foreach($slugs as $slug) {
                $rules['('.$slug.
                    ')/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)?/?$'] = 'index.php?category_name=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]';
                $rules['('.$slug.
                    ')/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$'] = 'index.php?category_name=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]';
                $rules['('.$slug.
                    ')(/page/(\d+)/?)?$'] = 'index.php?category_name=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[3]';
            }
        }
    }
    return $rules;
}

function remove_category($string, $type) {
    if ($type != 'single' && $type == 'category' && (strpos($string, 'category') !== false)) {
        $url_without_category = str_replace("/wpdmcategory/", "/", $string);
        return trailingslashit($url_without_category);
    }
    return $string;
}

echo $wp_query->max_num_pages;

Returns 3 when I have a total of 34 normal posts, how do I set this to use my custom post type to get the correct number of pages?

Answer 1

Just in case anyone ever stumbles across this, I found the solution.

First step was to create an archive.php page

In there I would access the loop.

The in functions.php

I have a category rewrite filter to update the category rewrite rules to use the following example url index.php?wpdmcategory=category-name&paged=2 when I hit /category-name/page/2

Previously, it was using the following example url, index.php?category_name=category-name&paged=2 so it was actually using the default post type for the category paging.

add_filter( 'category_rewrite_rules', 'vipx_filter_category_rewrite_rules' );`

function vipx_filter_category_rewrite_rules($rules) {
    $categories = get_terms('wpdmcategory', array("hide_empty" => false));

    if (is_array($categories) && !empty($categories)) {
        $slugs = array();
        foreach($categories as $category) {
            if (is_object($category) && !is_wp_error($category)) {
                if (0 == $category - > category_parent) {
                    $slugs[] = $category - > slug;
                } else {
                    $slugs[] = trim(get_category_parents($category - > term_id, false, '/', true), '/');
                }
            }
        }

        if (!empty($slugs)) {
            $rules = array();

            foreach($slugs as $slug) {
                $rules['('.$slug.
                    ')/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)?/?$'] = 'index.php?wpdmcategory=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]';
                $rules['('.$slug.
                    ')/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$'] = 'index.php?wpdmcategory=$matches[1]&feed=$matches[2]';
                $rules['('.$slug.
                    ')(/page/(\d+)/?)?$'] = 'index.php?wpdmcategory=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[3]';
            }
        }
    }
    return $rules;
}