Fixing .htaccess Generation Issues Permalink Problems

Fixing .htaccess Generation Issues

If your installation of WordPress does not generate a .htaccess file or if it does not write the new rules onto your existing .htaccess file then there are a couple reasons that could be causing this. Work step by step and continue to the next step only if the previous step does not work.

1. Change File Permissions: You must chmod the .htaccess file to 666 to edit it with the WordPress template editor, but this is not recommended, since if you do that, any user of your blog, who can edit templates will be able to edit it. You can change the permissions to 660 to make it server-writable, which again will have the same limitation.
2. Server Blockage: Your host might have blocked the SERVER_SOFTWARE variable and this will cause WordPress’ .htaccess generation to fail. If you are sure that your server is running Apache, you can force WordPress to believe that your server is running Apache by changing your wp-includes/vars.php file. Follow the steps below to implement these changes.
   • Open the wp-includes/vars.php file using the built in file editor in your WordPress Admin panel. To navigate to this panel, login to WordPress, click on “Manage”, then on “Files”, scroll to the bottom and type in wp-includes/vars.php into the text box under the “Other Files” title. Look for

     $is_apache = strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') ? 1 : 0;

     and replace it with

     // $is_apache = strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') ? 1 : 0;

   • Add a new line under

     // $is_apache = strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') ? 1 : 0;

     and type in

     $is_apache = 1;

3. Users of XAMPP (Windows): Some versions of XAMPP do not enable mod_rewrite by default (though it is compiled in Apache). To enable it — and thus enable WordPress to write the .htaccess file needed to create pretty permalinks — you must open apache/conf/httpd.conf and uncomment the line LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so (i.e., delete the hash/pound sign at the front of the line).
4. Users of WAMP (Windows): Some versions of WAMP (all versions?) do not enable mod_rewrite or permit following SymLinks by default. To enable the required functionality navigate to the apache/conf/httpd.conf file, open with a text editor and uncomment the line LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so (i.e., delete the hash/pound sign at the front of the line). Then further down in the same file there is a section that starts with the line "Options FollowSymlinks". Change the second line in that section from "AllowOverride none" to AllowOverride all. Save edited httpd.conf and restart all WAMP modules. Your permalinks should now work.