Removing index.php causes internal server error

Question

Just installed EE 2.8.1, haven't renamed the system folder yet and am trying to set up the htaccess file to remove index.php from URLs. When I use the htaccess code recommended in the installation instructions, I get an internal server error. The error log gives an alert:

.htaccess: RewriteRule: cannot compile regular expression '(.?)index\.php/(.*)'\n

Here's the .htacess contents

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    # Removes index.php from ExpressionEngine URLs
    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET.*index\.php [NC]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/system/.* [NC]
    RewriteRule (.*?)index\.php/*(.*) /$1$2 [R=301,NE,L]

    # Directs all EE web requests through the site index file
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

Anyone run into this and know how to fix it?

It's on an Apache 1.3.4 server; fresh install, no addons.

Answer 1

The htaccess setting depends of the characteristics of the server. I encountered the same problem too on a Apache server, the htaccess model from the doc was not working properly. You could try this one:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /


RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^(ACT=.*)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5})$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d


RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/() [NC,OR] 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(member|P[0-9]{2,8}) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /index.php/$1 [L]

</IfModule>

Else if it's not working try to contact the administrator of the server.

Answer 2

After playing around with this, finally landed on the code that works...and oh so simple in the end. In the first Rewrite rule, just remove the question mark in the (.*?). So here's the full code, in case it'll save someone else some time. Straight from the EE docs, with the slight modification. Just remember to replace "syst

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    # Removes index.php from ExpressionEngine URLs
    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET.*index\.php [NC]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/system/.* [NC]
   RewriteRule (.*)index\.php/*(.*) /$1$2 [R=301,NE,L]

    # Directs all EE web requests through the site index file
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
 </IfModule>