WordPress Page Dump

So not too long ago, I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and love it! I noticed a small problem though…when i went to click on a category title and show posts in that category I would get a page filled with every post and page that I had ever created. This also happened in place of my site giving the 404 error page. If I were to say, type in my URL and then put anything after the .com, it would again do a “page dump” as I call it and list every page and post that I had ever written.

There are 2 ways to solve this that I know of now.

Fix #1: The theme that I was using did not have an “archive.php” or an “archives.php” file in it. By adding those files, that fixed the issue of the category listing. So now when I click on a category title I see only posts in that category.

Fix #2: This is probably the most common fix I would assume and it resolved my issue outside of the category listings. If you’re using a static homepage in WordPress, you need to assign a “posts” page as well. In the WordPress control panel under “Settings” (in WP 2.5) or “Options” in earlier WP releases, you’ll see the tab for “Reading”…there you have the option to set a static homepage. If you’ve selected the homepage, you have to also select the “Posts Page”…if that is left empty, you’ll experience the “Page Dump”.

I hope this resolves any issues for any of you out there experiencing this problem, as it was very frustrating to try and diagnose.

Until next time…