.htaccess reverting to default

@james Huff: They keep telling me no.

Ok, time to rule-out the third-party items you do have control over.

Try deactivating all plugins, then edit .htaccess If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually editing .htaccess each time until you find the cause.

WordPress only edits that file when you visit the Settings Permalinks screen, and even then it only edits inside those comment lines. A plugin can override this, of course.

If you make the file read only (permission of 440 or 400), then WordPress will not attempt to modify it. Again, plugins can override that.

I’m having the same thing happen. My htaccess file has a date of 13/31/1969 and has 444 attrbute. I change the attribute to 644, then overwrite it through FTP or File manager and within seconds it reverts to the 12/31/1969 file and the attribute changes back to 444.

I found another thread with someone else having the same problem and his site had been hacked. I installed Wordfence, scanned and found problems and after fixing all the detected issues, my htaccess problem is gone.

Thanks for letting us know!

I also would like to report that it was a problem with malware, However I would like to report that the malware was in a wordpress installation in a folder under the wordpress installation where the problem was manifested. In other words the hack was affecting both the local wordpress installation and the one in the parent folder. Running Malware scanner and re-installing the current release did it.

I suspect that the malware was so focused on preventing anything but a standard .htaccess file was to prevent security addins such as Bulletproof Security from being activated.

Ouch, that’s some decently targeted malware.

You may want to implement some (if not all) of the recommended security measures.