No WordPress plugin able to generate a sitemap

Question

A while ago I managed to install Virtualmin on my VPS and am currently running WordPress. I'm also using Nginx.

After restoring my blog back from the backups I made, I was able to get it up and running and started to set up the plugins.

I initially used yoast, and tried to generate a sitemat but it didn't work - I kept getting a 404 error. I even checked using FTP and no file was found. So I looked up for solutions online and tried them all, refreshing permalinks, adding htaccess rules, adding rewrite rules to nginx.conf, purging cache and more. But nothing worked.

I also even tried uploading a dummy sitemap_index.xml file and refreshed the sitemap setting but it was never read nor updated.

So I decided to try other plugins too, All-in-One SEO, Jetpack, Google sitemaps, but sadly none of them were also able to create a sitemap.

This is my .htaccess file

# WordPress SEO - XML Sitemap Rewrite Fix
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^sitemap_index.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress SEO - XML Sitemap Rewrite Fix

# 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>
# END WordPress

And this is my nginx config (ikigainetwork.moe.conf)

server {
    server_name ikigainetwork.moe www.ikigainetwork.moe;
    listen 81.4.104.56;
    root /home/ikigainetwork/public_html;
    index index.html index.htm index.php;
    access_log /var/log/virtualmin/ikigainetwork.moe_access_log;
    error_log /var/log/virtualmin/ikigainetwork.moe_error_log;
    fastcgi_param GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1;
    fastcgi_param SERVER_SOFTWARE nginx;
    fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
    fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method;
    fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type;
    fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/ikigainetwork/public_html$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param REQUEST_URI $request_uri;
    fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_URI $document_uri;
    fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT /home/ikigainetwork/public_html;
    fastcgi_param SERVER_PROTOCOL $server_protocol;
    fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $remote_addr;
    fastcgi_param REMOTE_PORT $remote_port;
    fastcgi_param SERVER_ADDR $server_addr;
    fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT $server_port;
    fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name;
    fastcgi_param HTTPS $https;
    location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args; 
    }
    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/php-nginx/14911244012458.sock/socket;
    }
location ~* \.(txt|xml|js)$ {
    expires 8d;
}

location ~* \.(css)$ {
    expires 8d;
}

location ~* \.(flv|ico|pdf|avi|mov|ppt|doc|mp3|wmv|wav|mp4|m4v|ogg|webm|aac)$ {
    expires 8d;
}

location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|swf|webp)$ {
    expires 8d;
}
    listen 81.4.104.56:443 default ssl;
    ssl_certificate /home/ikigainetwork/ssl.cert;
    ssl_certificate_key /home/ikigainetwork/ssl.key;

#Yoast sitemap
location ~ ([^/]*)sitemap(.*)\.x(m|s)l$ {
    rewrite ^/sitemap\.xml$ /sitemap_index.xml permanent;
        rewrite ^/([a-z]+)?-?sitemap\.xsl$ /index.php?xsl=$1 last;
    rewrite ^/sitemap_index\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 last;
    rewrite ^/([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 last;

        ## following lines are options. Needed for wordpress-seo addons
        rewrite ^/news_sitemap\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=wpseo_news last;
    rewrite ^/locations\.kml$ /index.php?sitemap=wpseo_local_kml last;
    rewrite ^/geo_sitemap\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=wpseo_local last;
    rewrite ^/video-sitemap\.xsl$ /index.php?xsl=video last;

    access_log off;
}

}

Any luck in figuring this issue out? I've noticed that each plugin requires different rewrite rules... and some don't require any at all. The rule you've got seems to be the one for Yoast’s SEO, and it won't work on the others. As far as I understand, most plugins sort of register with WP what kind of internal rewriting rules are necessary for a sitemap. But sometimes nginx does not play nicely with that; and sometimes it has no trouble whatsoever. I wish I could know why, because I have the same issue as you do on many WP installations — but not on others! — and cannot fix it, either. — Gwyneth Llewelyn, Jan 31 '18 at 18:38

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 13 '19 at 11:55

I have a single wordpress installation
I use XML Sitemap Generator for WordPress 4.1.0 plugin.
I also had an issue with sitemap giving 404.
Here's what solved it for me:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

    location ~ ([^/]*)sitemap(.*).x(m|s)l$ {
        rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.xml$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2" last;
        rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.xml\.gz$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2;zip=true" last;
        rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.html$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2;html=true" last;
        rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.html.gz$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2;html=true;zip=true" last;
        }
}

Putting the sitemap rewrite inside location ~ solved the issue for me.

And does anyone use Jetpack? Because I have some trouble in getting nginx rules for sitemaps in directory-based multisite installations... — Gwyneth Llewelyn, Oct 01 '20 at 18:05

No WordPress plugin able to generate a sitemap

1 Answers1

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