WP network activation failing with Mamp

Got mod_rewrite enabled locally?

I was thinking MAMP would be doing that but I am a bit out of my depth here, so I don’t really know, I can say that In the MAMP Apache server screen, in the list of modules, is the ‘rewrite_module’ and its ticked.
Not sure thats enough info, is there any way I can check?

Yes.

Set pretty permalinks on the single main blog. Do they work?

Since I tried to activate multi site I have no access to the blog, I completed the 3 steps in the network admin activate network page and was invited to log in but I got the server error message then and from then on.

comment out the lines you added to the config file and you can get back in.

remove the stuff you put in htaccess as well.

Thanks, was writing this as you replied:

..so what i did was to create a new directory in my virtual host folder and put a new copy of WP3.21 in there, activated it and changed the permalinks- they worked I changed them from the default to numeric and it all reflects in the URL for the ‘hello world’ posts
Shall i still try with the original site?

Or on the working site, enable multisite and see what happens.

It worked this time! However when I create a sites and I go to visit it, the site shows up but it is completely without a theme or styling. All the headings and menus are aligned to the left and run underneath one another. There is a link to themes but it just returns to the same page.
(I don’t think this is relevant but I’ll mention it incase, when i created the WP network for the new site and was adding to the wp-config.php I noticed that none of the 8 ‘Unique Keys and Salts’, had been generated, whereas in the previous sites wp-config file they had.)

It’s still a mod_rewrite issue. ??

Basically, the directive on that vhost are not reading all the htaccess changes. Try AllowFileOptions All in httpd.conf.

OK, I cannot pretend to say I understand the httpd,config file, Its quite long with a lot of commenting but nowhere do I see any references to File options except in the part that i added towards the end: which is as follows:

NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs”
ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot “/Users/Dharmen/Sites/”
ServerName localhost
VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot “/Users/Dharmen/Sites/”
<Directory “/Users/Dharmen/Sites/”
AllowOverride Fileinfo Options
</Directory>

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot “/Users/Dharmen/Sites/sannyasnews”
AllowOverride All
ServerName sannyasnews.dev
</VirtualHost>

I see there is a line:

‘AllowOverride Fileinfo Options’

Should I be looking to ad another line like this somewhere?

Change it to ALL instead of Options.

and put that same line in the other vhost sections where you want it to work.

Thanks for you patience in sticking with this Andrea. i had to take a break as i was getting nowhere.
But I now have to hold my hand up as I found I’d made a basic error when updating the .htacess file at the activate multisite stage, I didn’t notice the instructions said to replace other WordPress rules. So with that done the site works properly. What a relief!

However, this whole venture was to try and solve a problem with my hosted site that runs Buddypress as a secondary site, that after updating to WP 3.2 and BP 1.9, Buddypress returns Page not found messages on the main Navigation links.
(If I activate a BP theme for the Primary site the navigation links work).

I’ve now tried BP on the virtually hosted site but the same problem persists.

The hosting company says its not a hosting problem (I’m not so sure) and no one on the forums at BP has so far been able to successfully help.

Most suggestions mention the permalinks and the htaccess file.
I’ve changed and reset the permalinks to no avail and the .htaccess file has only the code thats added for multisite.

What to do?

And did you declare in the wp-config file that bp was running on a secondary blog?

Otherwise, you need a BP theme on the BP blog and pretty permalinks enabled.

This is whats in the config file on the hosted site:

define(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);
define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);
define( ‘MULTISITE’, true );
define( ‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, false );
$base = ‘/now/’;
define( ‘DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘sannyasnews.org’ );
define( ‘PATH_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘/now/’ );
define( ‘SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1 );
define( ‘BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1 );

define ( ‘BP_BLOGS_SLUG’, ‘Sites’ );
define ( ‘BP_DISABLE_ADMIN_BAR’, true );
define ( ‘BP_AVATAR_FULL_WIDTH’, 100 );
define ( ‘BP_AVATAR_FULL_HEIGHT’, 100 );
define ( ‘BP_ROOT_BLOG’, 3 );

The last one, maybe is the declaration, as the Id for the BP site is 3

(haven’t got that line on the Vhost site, will try)

Am running the ‘BP columns’ theme on the blog and have tried the default for BP 1.9
to no avail. Permalinks are set to numeric on the BP blog.

Try setting the permalnks to one of the pretty ones shown, like date/title, not numeric or a custom one.

I dunno where you’re getting BP 1.9, as that is not the most recent version. It’s 1.2.9 ??

So basically, if you put a BP theme on the *main* site, it works? Then something is thinking that the main site is the still the BP blog.