Question

The routine below inserts a page, sets permalinks to postname then attempts to update the permalinks settings.

However, when I view the newly created page, I still get a 404 error. The only way to make it go away is to hit the settings > permalinks manager (just merely accessing the page does the trick, i don’t even have to save).

What’s up with that?

//create and insert a post
$my_post['post_content'] = "This is the content";
$my_post['post_type'] = 'page';
$my_post['post_status'] = 'publish';
wp_insert_post($my_post);

// Including files responsible for .htaccess update
require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-admin/includes/misc.php’);
require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-admin/includes/file.php’);

// Prepare WordPress Rewrite object in case it hasn't been initialized yet
if (empty($wp_rewrite) || !($wp_rewrite instanceof WP_Rewrite))
{
    $wp_rewrite = new WP_Rewrite();
}

// Update permalink structure
$permalink_structure = '/%postname%/';
$wp_rewrite->set_permalink_structure($permalink_structure);

// Recreate rewrite rules
$wp_rewrite->flush_rules();

Answer 1

Where is your code, in a plug-in or a theme?

The following plug-in works for me in the latest version of WP. It won’t work if .htaccess is not writeable, but I don’t think you can do anything about that.

function my_plugin_activate() {
    $test_post = array(
        'post_title' => 'Lorem ipsum',
        'post_content' => 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing …',
        'post_status' => 'publish',
        'post_type' => 'post'
    );
    wp_insert_post($test_post);

    global $wp_rewrite;
    $wp_rewrite->set_permalink_structure('/%postname%/');
    $wp_rewrite->flush_rules();
}

register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'my_plugin_activate');