Htaccess Problem

In the instructions it says:

C. Upload the vBSEO .htaccess file (located in the 'htaccess' folder) to your forum root folder.

However when we do this the entire site goes offline and when you try to access it all you get are server errors. How should we proceed to remedy this?

UPDATE: We just opened up the htaccess file and there is a lot of "yourdomain" paths. Are we supposed to edit this file to our domain first? The instructions said nothing about editing it...

Col,

those "yourdomain" are commented out with the #

did you have an .htaccess file before adding the vbseo .htaccess?
I've had to copy the vbseo htaccess info, and added it in with an existing htaccess file.. This may be your case as well.


-Brandon

Originally Posted by Loco

did you have an .htaccess file before adding the vbseo .htaccess?

Hi Brandon. No we did not have one before.

I know it's the htaccess file causing the problem because as soon as I deleted it off the server, the forum automatically reappeared.

Please post your htaccess here.

Code:

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vB folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums/)
#RewriteBase /

#RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com
#RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/forums/$1 [L,R=301]

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?)?)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

We just noticed something while looking at the file. It mentions the admincp and modcp folders. We renamed our admin and mod folders. So where it says admincp should we change it to what our admin folder is called?

Yes you can replace the admincp's with the new name of your directories. What errors is it showing when you put this online?

(Note, when a line starts with #, it is commented out, so the yourdomain part does not matter)

It's a standard 500 server error. Click here to see it. Changing the admincp/modcp names on the htaccess file didn't seem to help.

Might be best to open a Support ticket Col.

Smells like a lack of mod_rewrite functionality to me.. are you certain that mod_rewrite is enabled on your server, and that .htaccess is supported?

According to this GoDaddy help article, yes, it should be fine:

Mod_rewrite is an Apache web server module installed on all of our Linux severs by default; it does not have to be installed or enabled. Our Linux hosting accounts support most mod_rewrite functionality.Mod_rewrite is an Apache web server module installed on all of our Linux severs by default; it does not have to be installed or enabled. Our Linux hosting accounts support most mod_rewrite functionality.


You do not need to enable mod_rewrite in your httpd.conf, as this is handled at a global level. All you need to do is add the desired code to the body of your .htaccess file.
NOTE:The .htaccess file containing the rewrite rules must be in the same directory as the target files.

I am going to try to double check it now to confirm.

Try this:
[How to] Check if mod_rewrite is working for my site

Thanks Joe

Just to be clear to make sure we did it right here is the htaccess file:

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule testpage\.html http://www.google.com [R]

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vB folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums/)
#RewriteBase /

#RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com
#RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/forums/$1 [L,R=301]

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?)?)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

And here is the result

I read somewhere in another thread about Go Daddy servers where the path could be wrong (it needs to be shorter). Could this be the cause?

Try it with just the following in it:

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule testpage\.html http://www.google.com [R]

We tried that. It stayed the same

Hey Ingus, please open a ticket with admincp access, ftp, and your vbseocp password so we can try to get your board up and running.