Need Help With WordPress .htaccess | URL Re-Writing

[apondonet]

I have Wordpress installation (Ver. 2.0.1) that's been giving me headaches the last few days.

Here is what's happening:

In the admin panel I have set the permalink options (OPTIONS --> PERMALINK --> ) to the "Date and name based" option in the options list. My URLS are re-written to look like this: /blog/wordpress/index.php/2006/05/14/sample-post/

All URLs seem to work OK despite the fact that wordpress does not update the .htaccess file in installation root: /wordpress/ -- the .htaccess remains blank even when CHMODED to 777.

While the URLs seem to work fine the RSS FEED URLs generated for the MAIN FEED & COMMENTS are blank when viewed in a browser or a feed aggregator. Here is the feed format: /blog/wordpress/index.php/feed/ .

The same format appears in the the automatically generated AUTO-DISCOVERY tags, meaning the search engines are essentially picking nothing.

What heck is happening here?

Note: The default RSS feed URLs work fine:

Main Feed: /blog/wordpress/?feed=rss2
Comments Feed: /blog/wordpress/?feed=comments-rss2

[Teli]

Actually, the permalink structure you're using doesn't require .htaccess rewrite rules (that's why it's still blank). This structure previously caused problems in WP 1.2.x & 1.5.x, but it's much more rare with 2.0.x, so there may be other factors at play.

Without a URL to play with, it is more difficult to figure out what the specific problem for your website is. I would suggest changing the permalink structure to something else (removing the index.php portion) to see if it still gives you the same error. Be forewarned that you will need to update the .htaccess file for the new structure.

If the feeds start working, then you'll know it's a problem using index.php and if not, it may be a feed specific problem or even a problem with your content.

~ Teli

[apondonet]

Teli:

Thanks for your quick answer!

Do you have any sample .htaccess code I could play around with.

[Teli]

WordPress will create the .htaccess code for your automatically. Simply make sure your .htaccess file isn't writable, change your permalink structure in WP and it will spit out some code for you, copy it to notepad, and change your permalink structure back.

Instant .htaccess sandbox code - and it will be specific to your site.

~ Teli

By the way, do you have a name apondonet? Normally, I don't mind calling someone by their username, but it just seems strange...

[apondonet]

Call me James

[Teli]

Hi James, pleasure to meet ya

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Teli for jumping right in.

James Teli is the WP guru in case you couldn't tell.

Moved this to the RSS forum and out of the affilaite forum just to keep things more organzied by topic.

[apondonet]

Teli:

I did exactly as you said and selected the Custom structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ in Admin

WordPress spit out the following code for .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/wordpress/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/wordpress/index.php [L]

The URLs still have 'index.php' in them for example:
/blog/wordpress/index.php/category/marketing/
/blog/wordpress/index.php/2006/05/14/website-update-05-14-2006/

How do I remove the index.php in the URL?

Also, all other URLs work fine except the Main RSS URLs which still are in the format:
/blog/wordpress/feed/
/blog/wordpress/comments/feed/

...and do not work. I guess they are re-written incorrectly. I believe the fix is a code snippet for .htaccess

The odd thing is that the Category feeds which are in the same format: /blog/wordpress/category/marketing/feed/ work fine!!

Any ideas?

[apondonet]

I added a comment to one of the posts and booom.... everything fixed itself: The "index.php" has disappeared from the URLs and the feeds are now working fine.

How this happened beats me. I am just glad everything is working OK now.

Thanks for your help Teli. I will get back to you if I experience any more problems.

What a relief!

[apondonet]

Here is one for you Teli:

After clicking the SAVE button when posting I get a blank page with post.php at the end of the URL.

This seems to be a widespread problem and I haven't been able to solve it.

Any ideas?