Wordpress Custom Permalinks Problem

I have been doing a lot more work in Wordpress recently and have come across a problem turing on clean URL permalinks. The permalinks system has worked for me straight of of the box on MediaTemple and 1&1 servers but I have been getting an error message on Webfusion and 123-reg servers.

The issue occurs when setting a custom URL structure for your permalinks. You may chose one of the common settings or your own custom structure like /%category%/%postname%/ or /%postname%/. Wordpress then creates a .htaccess file for you. If your check your site, refresh the page and site then goes blank and you get the following error message:

Forbidden, perhaps you need to change the file permissions for this document or upload an index page.

Not to worry we can fix it. You will need to have FTP access to your site and be able to find your newly created .htaccess file. Open the file in your favorite editor and add the following two lines at the top:

Options -Indexes
Options +FollowSymLinks

Your file should now look like this:

Options -Indexes
Options +FollowSymLinks

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Now you should have working custom permalinks.

If you have a problem locating your .htaccess file it maybe because your FTP program is set to hide hidden files. By default a file starting with a period (.) is hidden, change your settings to display hidden files and you will be able to see and edit it.

I hope this helps anyone else having the same problem.

This article was posted on 15 October 2010 in Wordpress

What you have had to say about all this...

That's the end of this article. I hope you found it useful. If you're enjoyed this article why don't you have a look around the archives, where you can find some more tutorials, tips and general ramblings.