Probably, it is not necessary to say that any person visiting the Internet sites, at least once, has encountered the inability to display the page when the code 404 fails. The question immediately arises: “How to fix it?”. Error 404 (page not found) can occur for various reasons. And here in terms of the factors of its appearance there may be several main aspects: client errors, communication or software failures, server malfunctions, or simply the lack of a page at the specified address.
What does error 404 mean?
Failure itself means only one thing: for some reason, the page requested on the Internet cannot be found by a specific address request. In other words, it is simply absent.
But this is the simplest situation, for which you need to find a solution, how to fix it (error 404 "Page not found"). The page itself can actually exist, but access to it is not possible, blocked or limited. This state of affairs can be illustrated by an example. You know that some object must be on the shelf of the cabinet. Naturally, you purposefully open the cupboard and look at the shelf, but ... you need things there. This is one aspect. On the other hand, you probably just did not see the right thing, because it was littered with others or just lying on the side. This situation with error 404 also occurs.
Possible reasons for the failure
Before talking about the failure (how to fix it, how to fix it, error 404 “Page not found” appears again and again), we will turn to a list of possible reasons for its appearance. The following are usually indicated as the main and most common:
- incorrect address input;
- communication disruption;
- crashes in browsers;
- problems with the functioning of the server;
- physical absence of a page on the server, etc.
The main varieties of error 404
Typically, the 404 error code is exactly the same as the Windows Update failure code - 0x80244019.
But the message displayed in browsers may look different. The main types of messages are the following:
- 404 Page not found;
- HTTP 404 Not Found;
- 404 File or directory not found;
- Error 404 Not Found ;
- HTTP 404
- Required URL was not found on this server
- Error 404;
- 404 Not Found;
- 404 Error.
In principle, despite the messages being different, the error code 404 remains the same, and the essence of the problem does not change. Let's see how this situation can be corrected by the simplest methods.
Error 404: what to do? The simplest fix method
For starters, you should try to simply refresh the page, because it can appear even in the event of a passing communication failure or overload of the server on which the page is located.
To do this, in all browsers without exception, use the F5 key, a button on the panel, or the corresponding command from the menu. If this does not help, you should check the Internet connection, since in the absence of a connection, such an error is generated.
Very often, a failure occurs due to the carelessness of the user himself, when he simply enters the address with errors. The question arises: "How to fix the problem?". Error 404 “Page not found” is removed by the most common check of spelling of the resource address with re-entering the correct value. In addition, if an error is received while visiting a related resource, you should try moving up one level. For example: a crash occurs on the website.ru.ru/a/b.html page. In this case, you need to go one level up, corresponding to the website.ru/a.html address, and then look for the desired link to an inaccessible page on it.
Finally, in the matter of how to remove the 404 error, you can simply ask the address in any search engine at the address available to make sure that the page really exists. As a last resort, you should check access to it, say, from a mobile device. You can use more advanced initialization tools.
For this, the powerful WhoIs Internet service is perfect, on which the search is set, and the results will show the link of the page to a specific place or provider, not to mention confirmation of its physical existence.
In the end, if the problem is in the network settings, you may have to try changing the DNS server addresses, which sometimes allows you to fix the problem. But such situations regarding error 404 are extremely rare.
It also happens that nothing depends on the user. The owner or copyright holder could transfer the page to another resource or hosting without first binding the old address of the page to a new location, because of which redirection does not occur. Maybe the server crashed, or its operation was interrupted by the same DDoS attack. There is nothing to be done. In the best case, you can contact the site owner by e-mail and find out the causes of the problems.
Recommendations for web developers
As far as web developers are concerned, usually these crashes can be identified and attempted to be fixed using appropriate methods.
Most experts recommend using the Google Web Masters Tool for webmasters, similar Yandex tools, as well as a special Broken Link Checker plugin for the WordPress platform. But, as it is believed, it is better to conduct a comprehensive audit using all means.
In addition to all of the above, you can check the link quite simply on specialized sites, where it is enough to simply enter the address, activate the verification process and get the corresponding result.
Conclusion
Instead of the result, it remains to say that although 404 error in all its manifestations is not critical, nevertheless, any user or web developer is capable of delivering a lot of headache. As for the elimination of such failures, in the event of errors from the server side, an ordinary user may not even try to influence the situation, it still will not work. For the rest, you just need to be more careful when entering addresses and make sure that there are no disturbances in the work of the currently active Internet connection. If nothing helps at all, you can use utilities like Microsoft Fix It !, focused on automatic troubleshooting, including Internet connections. But in most cases, the appearance of such an error is not associated with software failures and changing some parameters, the situation is not corrected (with the exception of DNS addresses and other network settings).