Internal Server Error with .htaccess

Using the most current vbSEO on vBulletin 3.6.3--but the problem appears to be related only to the configuration of the rewrite engine. We're using Apache 2.2.3.

1) When the default .htaccess is placed in the forum root I start getting Internal Server Error for all pages on the site. The error_log says "RewriteEngine not allowed here."

2) I attempted moving the rewrite rules into httpd.conf, and this didn't work either (got "Bad Request" errors).

3) mod_rewrite is properly installed, and it being used for other parts of the site already. Because I was concerned that there was I conflict, I commented out all our own rewrite rules to see if it would work with only vbseo's rules. This didn't help either.

4) Removing .htaccess or the rules from httpd.conf immediately allows the site to work fine, except that vbSEO renders the forums unusable withtout the rewriting rules--so I had to disable it from the control panel.

Our forum is installed to the root path ("/") of the docroot directory, if that's relavent (we don't use a /forum path).

Any suggestions?

Hello Jon,

please try to add "Options +FollowSymLinks" into your httpd.conf to allow rewrite directives in .htaccess and uncomment "RewriteBase /" line in vBSEO's .htaccess.