Google Search Console "Couldn't fetch" Sitemap Error

The most important thing to do so that our site's content gets indexed by Google is to ask Googlebot, through Search Console, to crawl our sitemap. But when we send that request, we may get a Couldn't fetch error like the one below. This error has many causes, and sometimes it comes from Google itself.

If you're getting the "Couldn't fetch" error shown below, let's see why it happens and what we can do to fix it.

• Check your WordPress plugin, if you have one
  If you generate the sitemap with a WordPress plugin, first check whether the plugin's website offers a fix for this issue. A method that often works is to remove the plugin completely and reinstall it.
   

• Check your sitemap.xml file manually.
  Open /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml on your site and see whether the page loads properly. If it doesn't, make sure the page gets created, either manually or with a plugin.
   

• Try submitting your .xml page in Search Console's URL Inspection.
  Go to URL Inspection in Search Console and try to get your XML file indexed. This makes the page more reachable for the bot Google sends to your site.
   

• Submit sitemap.xml to Search Console with different parameters.
  In addition to the .htaccess fix described below, the issue may go away if you submit the page as sitemap.xml?page=1, sitemap.php or sitemap.php?page=1.
   

• There may be a problem with the domain, or a noindex tag on your site. Check whether your site or domain is banned within the country.
   

• Finally
  If you tried all the solutions above and still got nowhere, the problem is on Google's side, or your site is new and not yet considered ready for indexing. In that case, index your articles and other pages one by one with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.

Check your .htaccess file.
Your .htaccess file may not allow access to sitemap.xml. With some plugins, for example, a PHP-based sitemap is reachable at sitemap.php, and if you submit it as sitemap.xml you won't get a result. To fix this, edit the .htaccess file in your host's root directory (or create one if it doesn't exist) and add the code below. On cPanel-based hosting, remember you can reach .htaccess by enabling "show hidden files" from the gear icon at the top right.

RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ index.php?route=extension/feed/google_sitemap [L]

 I hope your problem is solved. I had this error for a week and a half myself and read hundreds of posts and support threads. In my case it was because the site was new, and it fixed itself. See you in the next post, and good luck to all fellow developers.