Troubleshooting

Fixes for the problems most often reported with Super Speedy Sitemaps, in order of how often they come up. Before anything else, open Super Speedy > Sitemaps > Sitemap Log: it lists every sitemap generated, when, and any errors or notices from the build.

A sitemap shows a white page, a 500 error or a 504 timeout

The sitemap is trying to do too much work in one request and PHP runs out of time or memory.

1. Go to XML Sitemaps > Item limits and lower Global limit to 2,000. Make sure Split post-based sitemaps is ticked and Split limit is 0.
2. If it still fails, go to Advanced Options > Sitemap modules and lower Database query limit to 500.
3. If you enabled the Google Image Sitemap extension, switch it off and test again. It adds lookups to every URL.
4. Once the sitemap loads, turn on Advanced Options > Sitemap Cache > Enable caching so it is not rebuilt on every request.

Lowering the limits loses nothing: the URLs move into more, smaller files, all listed in the index. Large Sites and Performance explains how the limits work.

“Content Encoding Error” or a garbled sitemap

The browser received a response that claims to be compressed but is not, or is compressed twice.

1. Go to Advanced Options > Formatting and untick Compress sitemaps. Most servers already gzip XML, so compressing in PHP as well breaks the response.
2. Click Flush Cache and reload the sitemap.
3. If the error remains, tick Advanced Options > Debugging > Enable extra debugging mode. The plugin then sends no headers and no compression at all. If the sitemap loads in this mode, the server, a caching plugin or a CDN is adding its own compression or headers; check their settings. Untick extra debugging mode afterwards.

“XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document”

Something printed output before the sitemap’s <?xml line. View the page source: the very first characters must be <?xml. If you see a blank line, a PHP warning or notice, or HTML above it, that came from another plugin, the theme, or a wp-config.php with stray characters outside <?php. Fix the source of the output, or set WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY to false on a live site so PHP notices are logged rather than printed.

“Could not flush the cache”

The full message is “Could not flush the cache, cache directory is either not found or is not writable.” The settings screen may also warn that the cache directory does not exist or is not writable.

Cached sitemaps are stored in wp-content/uploads/super-speedy-sitemaps/. PHP needs to be able to create, write and delete files there.

1. Check the folder exists. The plugin creates it when it can, but a read-only or restricted uploads folder prevents that.
2. Make sure it is owned by the user PHP runs as (often www-data, nginx or your hosting account user) and has permissions 755. Avoid 777: it lets any process on the server write to the folder.
3. Click Flush Cache again.

If your host mounts wp-content read-only, a developer can point the cache somewhere writable with the sssm_gxs_cache_dir filter (see Developer Reference), or you can leave caching off.

The sitemap does not change after editing settings or content

1. If Enable caching is on, click Flush Cache, or wait for the Cache expiry time (one hour by default).
2. Reload the sitemap with a cache-busting query string, for example sitemapindex.xml?nocache=123, to bypass any page cache. If that shows the new content, a page cache or CDN is serving an old copy: purge the sitemap URLs there, or exclude sitemap URLs from it.
3. If Enable auto cache re-generation is off, expired files are not rebuilt until you flush the cache.

A sitemap URL returns 404

1. Is that sitemap enabled? A sitemap for a disabled post type or taxonomy returns 404. The Sitemap Log shows a notice such as “Requested sitemap (name.xml) was not found or not enabled.”
2. Refresh the rewrite rules. Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes without changing anything.
3. On nginx, check the server configuration does not serve .xml files only from disk. Requests for sitemap URLs must reach WordPress through try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;. A location ~ \.xml$ block that returns 404 for missing files stops every sitemap from loading.
4. Is another plugin answering that URL? Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and The SEO Framework all use sitemap URLs of their own. See Running Alongside Other Sitemap Generators.

Pages are missing from the sitemap

Check, in order:

• The post type or taxonomy is ticked on the XML Sitemaps tab.
• The item is not listed under Exclude items, and it is not in an excluded term while Exclude posts by terms is on.
• The post is published and not password-protected.
• The SEO Framework or Super Speedy Filters is not marking it noindex. A greyed-out checkbox means one of them decides. See SEO Plugin Integrations.
• The sitemap is not a cached copy from before the page was published. Flush the cache.

noindexed pages appear in the sitemap

Search Console reports “Submitted URL marked noindex”. If the noindex comes from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress or All in One SEO, this plugin does not read it. Exclude the items on the XML Sitemaps tab under Exclude items. See Choosing What Goes in Your Sitemaps.

A taxonomy or post type checkbox is greyed out

Another plugin controls it. The help icon beside it names the plugin, gives the reason and links to the setting that decides it. Change it there. See SEO Plugin Integrations.

Search Console says “Couldn’t fetch”

1. Open the index URL in a private browser window. It must load as XML with no login prompt.
2. Check robots.txt does not disallow the sitemap URL.
3. Check a security plugin, firewall or CDN bot rule is not blocking Googlebot from .xml URLs.
4. Use the full URL exactly as it appears in the browser, including https:// and www. if your site uses it.

Search Console often shows “Couldn’t fetch” for a while after a new submission. If the index loads correctly in a browser, wait a day before investigating further.

Still stuck?

Follow How to get support and include the sitemap URL, a screenshot of the Sitemap Log, and what you have already tried.

Further reading

Related products

Super Speedy SitemapsAll other sitemaps were so slow, we built our own

Written for Super Speedy Sitemaps 1.11.17.