We had an interesting job today: a regular client called us in the morning and told us that he can’t get URL rewriting to work on his Joomla 3.5.1 website. He told us that when he set Use URL Rewriting to Yes in the Joomla’s Global Configuration, all the URLs, with the exception of the homepage, resulted in a 404 page.
Naturally, we thought it was a simple issue: most likely the client didn’t rename the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess, but, after a quick check, we discovered that he did, and this is where the fun started…
We first thought that the .htaccess file that he was using was corrupt, and so we replaced it with the default one that comes with Joomla, but that didn’t fix it.
We then thought it might be a system plugin causing all this mess, and so we disabled all the of the enabled system plugins, and we tested the website, hoping that it might be it, but, to our disappointment, it wasn’t: we still saw the dreaded 404 page when we went to anything other than the homepage.
At this point, we started suspecting the server, and so we checked the httpd.conf file (Apache‘s configuration file), but it was clean. We also checked if the mod_rewrite module was installed and enabled, and it was. We tried every single possible trick on the httpd.conf file, restarting Apache every time we did that, but with no success whatsoever.
Since we were so convinced that the problem was a server problem, we contacted the host and we told them that there is some serious issue with URL rewriting on the server, and we would love if they can take a look. They were quick to offer help, but on the condition that we create a very simple test scenario where they can see that URL rewriting is not working. So we created a folder called test under the main Joomla website, and we installed there a fresh, clean copy of Joomla 3.5.1 along with the sample data. We set the Search Engine Friendly URLs and the Use URL Rewriting options in the Global Configuration settings to Yes, we renamed the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess, and we tested the test website. To our astonishment, it worked. This experiment, of course, ruled out the server environment as the cause of this problem, which was somehow depressing: it was our problem again!
Something, however, was weird with the way the website worked when URL Rewriting was enabled. Whenever a rewritten URL was used, the 404 page was loading super quickly, making us question whether Joomla was actually intercepting that page at all. It was a long shot but we wanted to prove it: we added a die(‘Under Maintenance’); at the beginning of the entry index.php file located under the root directory of the Joomla website, and then we visited the URL, and, guess what, we saw the 404 page, instead of a page with just Under Maintenance in it.
This meant that Joomla wasn’t even intercepting the URL, which was odd, as this is not the normal behavior. Now, the question was, where was this 404 page coming from?
It didn’t take us long to discover which file was responsible for generating the 404 page. It was a file called 404.shtml which was located under the main folder of the Joomla website. Renaming that file to somethingelse.shtml fixed the problem!
But why was the presence of the 404.shtml file causing the problem?
The Apache configuration stated that if someone tried to access a file that didn’t exist, and if the 404.shtml file existed, then that file will be loaded. And, since accessing a URL without index.php in it technically means trying to access a non-existent file, the 404.shtml was getting loaded, causing all this frustration for us and for our client.
Now if you, our dear reader, are having a problem with URL rewriting on your Joomla website, then check (after making sure that you have renamed the htaccess.txt to .htaccess) that you don’t have a 404.shtml file lurking on your website. If you do, then just rename it and see if that fixes the problem. If it doesn’t, then please contact us. We will fix the problem for you, efficiently, professionally, and affordably!
I have looked high and low within the cpanel files for a 404.shtml file with no luck, and definitely after I changed the .htaccess file. I still am unable to get URL rewriting working.
Hi Linda,
What kind of web server are you using? Are you sure you are using Apache (and not nginx for example)? Only the Apache webserver uses the .htaccess file.
Thanks for this very clear explanation. Even a few years later this works. I had created an .htaccess file using Akeeba AdminTools and was getting the Internal Error on all but my home page. By simply replacing the standard Joomla file into the AdminTools created one, then clearing the cache from both the browser and through the Joomla System the site is now functional without the index.php showing.