Please help with my Wordpress issue!
 

Im rebuilding an old blog and deleted all the old posts, i have managed to get the old post 404s redirected to the homepage but the 404's caused by the now existant tag links go to a different error page (showing a 404 message and a search box).
My problem is that i just cannot find where this error message is generated or how to override it so that the tag 404s get sent to the homepage.

thanks

When you say you have managed to redirect the old posts, did you do it through an htaccess rule? I need more info on this... For the old tags, you can delete them in the tag menu on the left of the admin page, they won't show up anymore. You can redirect them too but since they are in a virtual subfolder /tag/ it is not the same rule as redirecting your posts in your htaccess file. If your 404 page is the same as your theme then it is the default 404 page for wordpress, you can also install a plugin which will redirect your 404 to you home page, google it...

yeah, i used a httaccess redirect for the old posts.
I deleted all old tags,posts,pages using a mass-delete plugin.
I have tried a few 404 redirect plugins with seem to work for the deletd posts but none that i have found work for deleted tag urls.
I've even tried removing the 404 page but the tags 404 error message goes to a different place to the posts 404 page.

Please post you htaccess rule

Have you tried this one, works fine with me, you will have to delete your htaccess rule and clean your cache plugin on your blog and also the cache in your browser to test it.

wordpress(dot)org/extend/plugins/404-redirection/

Delete the 404.php page in your theme folder, and it should redirect 404 errors to your home page?

Also keep in mind that you may have another plugin or function within your theme that handles URL rewriting, and it's conflicting with a 404 plugin. To test it properly, temporarily change the theme to a default...

i've found the error message, it was buried in the archive.php
i've changed the error message to a link to the homepage but ofcause that means the surfer has to click the link to go there.
i tried adding a redirect on that page ( <?php wp_redirect(get_option('siteurl'),301); ?> ) but that didnt work :(