PHP header( “Location: /404.php”, true, 404 ) does not work

Question

I\'d like to use the following to redirect pages that are no longer present in the database to the custom 404 page:

ob_start();
....
if ( !$found ):
  header         


        

Answer 1

I think your problem is because of the output buffering you're starting, or because you can't redirect with a 404. The first code example shows the output buffer starting but exiting instead of cleaning the output buffer and stopping output buffering.

Change the first example to:

if (!$found) {
  ob_end_clean();
  header('Location: /404.php');
  exit();
}