Index.php Removal Not Working

Question

I have a site causing me no end of trouble with index.php removal. It works on one host (EngineHosting) but not on another (Liquid Web). I have other sites on the same server at Liquid Web using the same htaccess rule that work fine. By all definition, this should work. Here's the htaccess:

# EE 404 page for missing pages
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php?/site/404

# Simple 404 for missing files
<FilesMatch "(\.jpe?g|gif|png|bmp)$">
  ErrorDocument 404 "File Not Found"
</FilesMatch>

#Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

# remove the www
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.sitenameremoved.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://sitenameremoved.com/$1 [R=301,L]

# Remove trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.+)/$
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$  /$1 [R=301,L]

# Force remove index.php (File and Directory Check)
RewriteCond $1 !\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

# Remove IE image toolbar
<FilesMatch "\.(html|htm|php)$">
  Header set imagetoolbar "no"
</FilesMatch>

I have tried the RewriteRule with and without a ?, I have ensured that the other rules are working (they are), I have verified that 'Name of your site's index page' is blank, I have removed all other rules and tested, and I have used this same rule on dozens of other sites. Here, however, it does not work.

This site is EE2, non MSM.

What can I be missing?

Answer 1

I went through all the trouble of writing up this question after having sunk hours into this problem, when I took one last look and -finally- something I should have remembered clicked in my head.

$config['uri_protocol'] = ""

That config variable was the trick. If you're having a similar issue, try a couple of common settings for it - AUTO and PATH_INFO usually work for me.