Fix WordPress Error : Item Not Updated

Yesterday I was trying to edit a “Category Slug” for this blog. Despite of all my tries, I was getting the same error all the time. The error message was “Item not updated”. So, I search Google for a solution, but none of them helped me to fix it to my satisfaction.

For those who do not know what a category slug is, it is the URL-friendly version of the category name. It is usually all-lowercase and contains only letters, numbers, and hyphens.

The Problem
After spending about 15 minutes looking for the solution, I found that there is already a same slug exists for tags, which I want to use for category. A dig into the wordpress help reveled that wordpress uses same database table (wp_terms) to store the names and slugs for both categories and tags. Therefore, my new category slug was conflicting with the existing tag slug.

The Solutions
There are actually two solutions or ways to fix the wordpress error item not updated and both of them are pretty simple. First, one is deleting or editing the conflicting tag slug from the wordpress admin dashboard and the second one is from deleting it from the database using phpMyAdmin.

• From WordPress Dashboard
  First, you need to find which tag has the same slug that you want for a category. Go to the Post Tags under “Posts” settings group at the wordpress dashboard. Now search for the slug you want to use for category from the search bar at the top right of the post tag page. It will return tags using similar slug. Delete the whole tag or just change the slug of that tag to something using and save it.
• From phpMyAdmin
  Login to your phpMyAdmin (if you are using MySQL) and click on the database name at the left. It will expand and show the tables it contains. There must be a table called “wp_terms“. Clicking on it will show the names and slugs for your taxonomies like categories, tags and link categories. Click on the red X to delete or click on the pencil icon to edit the conflicting slug.

Once you are done, go to the Categories under the “Posts” setting group again. Now you can edit and use your desired slug for categories.