difficulties with a new site on PanelSecure

.htaccess is a configuration file used in Linux environments to provide the server configuration instructions for URL redirection, URL shortening, and access control, amongst other things. Are you sure you’re hosted on a Linux environment and not a Windows environment.

Hope this helps.

If you want to change the Permalink structure then WordPress either needs to write to the htaccess file itself or else hand the code to you via a dashboard message for you to add to that file manually.

The Permalink structure itself will not change on its own once set.

Right now I’m seeing the content (or part of the content) of your robots txt file.

Now it’s fine… I see your storefront.

@binarywc
I would think so I have WHM and cPanel I don’t think they come with windows hosting but don’t know as I’ve never used that.

@jnashhawkins
yes you have seen exactly what happens for one of our developers, we have been building wordpress sites for almost 20years and not seen that happen before.

Okay so knowing that your using cPanel helps.. It’s likely a server configuration issue.

Also, not trying to burst your bubble or pick and arguments but WordPress had only been around for just over 15 years. So there’s no way you’ve been building WordPress websites for 20 years unless you’re combining all of the experience of your entire team.

@binarywc
hey been doing websites that long who keeps track of changing from html in notepad and dreamweaver to wordpress, all I know it was a big win ?? and I still find myself working in notepad with php at times.

That makes more sense and yes I find myself in notepad a ton as well. I’m definitely feeling like you’re dealing with a server configuration issue in this case. Can’t remember what I did to fix this issue the last time I had it… It’s been a couple years.

Hope you find a solution soon.

Well, I have an idea…

Ask the host to give you a different server within their system because you believe this one is broken.

When I looked before I saw the Apache server, I then looked at the plugins list… I don’t see a proxy and I didn’t see a cache but that thing acts like there’s a cache and it’s trying to serve txt files and whatever else it finds as webpages. I’d be very uncomfortable turning that over to a client not knowing when it might decide to serve up a file with some serious confidential info in it.

It’s probably a problem with the Apache config and you might be able to fix that yourself via CPanel but why bother when you could switch servers and be done with it and who knows what else is wrong there.

If the host won’t do that then I’d build the site on a development box locally and refuse to migrate it until the client has been notified and agrees to sign a ‘hold harmless’ agreement for you. You don’t want to stake your good reputation on a host and a server that might be a problem down the road.

@jnashhawkins
Thanks for that, it has put the nail in the coffin for that server, I have transferred everything over to something more reputable, checked and all seems to be working fine now, thanks to everyone for your help, much appreciated.

I know the issue – at panelSecure they are using a “compatible” webserver which delivers great speed but requires some specific settings for WordPress to work correctly.

In particular, this line of htaccess:

RewriteRule . index.php [L]

will need to be edited like this for WordPress to work:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1/ [PT,L]

as they stat it in their support FAQ.

It’s pretty ugly, I know, but the change needs to be done just once, and the performance is not bad for the very cheap price.