Status code 404 not being returned

[cguanaja]

This was working and the only change I’ve done is making the site multilingual.

• error.php file is under template’s location and has the correct code, /opt/bitnami/apps/joomla/htdocs/templates/lt_strategy_onepage

• copied error.php file under above location to templates/system also

• accessing any invalid resource does not return 404 status code but rather 301, 302 and 200 - I’ve used online tools and screaming frog SEO spider tool also

What needs to be done so invalid resources return status code 404? Please note that in the front end, browsers do show the 404 error page but just the status code on the back end which is not right.

Will appreciate a second pair of eyes - thanks!

[pe7er]

What needs to be done so invalid resources return status code 404?

If you use the error.php when having a HTTP Status code 404 to display an article "Page not found" from your site,
then the "Page not found" will be successfully displayed and generate a HTTP status code of 200 "Success".

For my multilingual website (5 languages under 5 top level domains) I use the following error.php that load /error (a menu item with alias "error" that loads a "Page not found" article) and for each language it loads its own error menu item + page.

Code: Select all

use Joomla\CMS\Factory;
use Joomla\CMS\Uri\Uri;

$errorPages = ['en-GB' => 'error', 'es-ES' => 'error-404',
'de-DE' => 'fehler', 'nl-NL' => 'fout', 'fr-FR' => 'erreur'];
$languageTag = Factory::getLanguage()->get('tag');

if ($this->error->getCode() == '404')
{
    header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
    echo file_get_contents(URI::root() . '/' 
    . $errorPages[$languageTag]);
    exit;
}

[cguanaja]

Appreciate the input here @pe7er - quick questions for you.

- let's say for 'en-GB' => 'error', 'es-ES' => 'error-404' - are error and error-404 pages that you have with the respective output? Having each page associated with a menu and language?
- which one is the tag returned for get('tag')?

Thanks.

[pe7er]

Appreciate the input here @pe7er - quick questions for you.

- let's say for 'en-GB' => 'error', 'es-ES' => 'error-404' - are error and error-404 pages that you have with the respective output? Having each page associated with a menu and language?

Yes, that's correct.
"error" = the alias of a menu item of type Single Article and associated to English, which links to an English article "Sorry, not Found". Same goes for "error-404".
Same for Spanish but in Spanish "error" is also "error". As I used that alias in the English menu already, I decided to use "error-404".

- which one is the tag returned for get('tag')?

On English pages the get('tag') will be 'en-GB' and on Spanish pages 'es-ES'.
From my array of languages/aliasses, I get the correct alias to retrieve that menu item.