Wordpress posts returning 500 errors in Webmaster Tools

I've been trying to figure this out for ages with no luck

My site was getting around 800 page views a day, then all of a sudden dropped to about 100. Google Webmaster tools is giving me unreachable errors but only for the actual Wordpress posts, the rest of the site indexes fine.

When I fetch as google I get 'unreachable'

HOWEVER

The URLS are mysite.com/category/postitle/

when i change my permalink settings in wordpress so the links don't have the trailing slash, Fetching as Google returns success!!! Even though they are searching for the address with the slash! bizarre!!

And if you go to the actual pages they are reachable with or without a slash

I'm just at a complete loss and I'm afraid to ask anyone because the site contains 'adult' material

 

do you have any .htaccess file?

 

I do actually now I look, although I don't remember creating it.

its content is...

# 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
Maybe I added this in order to try and fix the problem, or maybe this is whats breaking it

 

I had this problem to a particular wordpress theme, but was returning 500 errors just on deleted pages instead of 404. I never solved that problem. Anyway the problem wasn't from permalinks or htaccess file. It looked as a server problem ( where the website is hosted)..

 

kindly post your custom permalink

 

currently... /%category%/%postname%

As I wanted to see if the trailing slash was the problem. Now webmaster Tools fetches the link with a slash fine but without it is unreachable!

I also have "WP No Category Base" installed to get rid of the unnecesary 'category' part. Could this be a problem? I have that on all my other sites though without any negative effect

Thanks

 

disable all plugins. change the template to default and test again. . check the permissions for the .htaccess file (give 777 temporarily). check the home value in the wp_options table (make it blank, just in case). set you permalink to /%category%/%postname%/ not /%category%/%postname%. make sure mod_rewrite is enabled and working.

 

500 is for internal server error. Otherwise, some plugin has crashed and reporting the error. I had the same issue once because of a crashed plugin, a security plugin. Traffic dropped miraculously like you said. My advice is ^^ what Mark has said. Disable all plugins, if not working use FTP for bulk removal. Try to remember any recent plugin you have installed. I guess it should be alright soon.

 

Thanks everyone for the advice

Having gone through my plugins it seems 'BWP Google XML Sitemaps' was causing the problem, although I'm skeptical because I'm sure I added this plugin instead of the one I was using to try and fix the problem. Maybe they're both faulty.

Anyway, does anyone know how to make my own sitemap so I dont have to rely on a plugin?

The one in YOAST doesnt work for me

 

Try this plugin: http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/
I have been using it for a long time and I think it's the best one. No conflict whatsoever with others.

 

great to know you found the issue. yoast sitemap works great, i have dozens of blogs and didn't get any problem. Can you tell me what do you mean by "doesn't work" ?