Concrete5 project throws 404 on all pages except index.php - php

Question

I just copied a concrete5 project over to my local box and am trying to get it running on localhost. I had permissions problems at the start so I just ran a sudo chmod 777 -R site which remedied that. I then had problems with clicking a link. Anything besides index.php would result in a 404. So I messed around with the htaccess file. It came in this state:
# Use PHP53 as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php53 .php
<IfModule mod_suphp.c>
suPHP_ConfigPath /opt/php53/lib
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.html !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php !-f
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>
and I changed it to this:
# Use PHP53 as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php53 .php
<IfModule mod_suphp.c>
suPHP_ConfigPath /opt/php53/lib
</IfModule>
<Directory>
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php !-f
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>
Now, none of that helped. I decided to just disable pretty URLs in the database. I did that and most links work. It looks like some still don't (maybe the ones that are involved in a package. I don't know because I am picking up this project where someone left it). Bear in mind this all works perfectly on the live server at this time with the first .htaccess file I showed.
Any idea as to how to remedy this?

Answer 1

It does sound like you are having an issue with Pretty URLs. The ones that are still not working after you disabled it are likely do cached items like blocks. If you clear you cache your site will likely work without Pretty URLs turned on.
As for why Pretty URLs are not working, I would first make sure that mod_rewrite is enabled. Then you can try a couple of these for the rewrite rule.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [L]
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]

Answer 2

Note: you can use the scripts from your admin login to update "pretty URLs". One caution would be is that if you use .htaccess for another purpose on your site.

Answer 3

Try removing the htaccess completely. Rather than deleting it, rename it. Then get into the dashboard directly at /index/dashboard/ , disable pretty urls, disable and clear the cache, and clear your browser cache.
(In general, always disable pretty urls and disable and clear the cache before cloning a site.)
Once everything is working without pretty urls, you can then start re-enabling.

Answer 4

I've just hit this one whilst trying out concrete5 on my home machine (linux/apache).
In my case, the problem appears to have been because I'd installed concrete5 two directory levels beneath the document root (/var/www/html). Initially, I just created the .htaccess file based on the values given when I enabled pretty urls, then hit the "page not found" problem (couldn't even log in.) Eventually, the penny dropped: I edited .htaccess and changed RewriteRule to point to the actual location of the concrete5 index.php relative to /var/www/html.
So in my case, concrete5 is installed into /var/www/html/playpen/public_html - so the new RewriteRule reads:
RewriteRule . playpen/public_html/index.php
and that appears to work.
Hope it helps someone ...