404 error on all templates but homepage after removing index.php

Question

I am trying to remove the index.php from my URL, and have gone through the necessary steps, and used the code below in my .htaccess file. When I navigate to the homepage, it works, but clicking on any links, or typing their url in manually results in a 404. Just for poops and giggles, I added the index.php into the url of one of the sub-pages, and it started working fine. I've also tried adding the / before index.php in the code below to no avail, and I've tried with and without the ? after index.php. Any help you can provide would be amazing. Also, my site is in a subdirectory, ie, example.com/site-directory/index.php.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

# Removes index.php from ExpressionEngine URLs
RewriteCond $1 !\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

Answer 1

Because EE (and CI) run all page requests from a single index.php they must pull in the dynamic data from the URL. In general it does this via the server environment variable PATH_INFO. The problem, though, is that not all servers have this environment variable set. That's why EE and CI allow you to change how the URI is read.

In some cases the environment doesn't have PATH_INFO as an option. In those cases the system tries to "auto" select the right value but it doesn't always work.

Try changing the value of $config['uri_protocol'] in your system/expressionengine/config/config.php file. The possible values are listed in the file. Loop through those and save each time, refreshing the website when you're done. See if any of those different options fix the problem.

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| URI PROTOCOL
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This item determines which server global should be used to retrieve the
| URI string.  The default setting of "AUTO" works for most servers.
| If your links do not seem to work, try one of the other delicious flavors:
|
| 'AUTO'            Default - auto detects
| 'PATH_INFO'       Uses the PATH_INFO
| 'QUERY_STRING'    Uses the QUERY_STRING
| 'REQUEST_URI'     Uses the REQUEST_URI
| 'ORIG_PATH_INFO'  Uses the ORIG_PATH_INFO
|
*/
$config['uri_protocol'] = 'AUTO';

Answer 2

try adding the path like so:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /site_directory/index.php?/$1 [L]

EDIT:

Sometimes Apache can be set up different from server to server.

i. e. on DreamHost this would work

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /site_directory/index.php?/$1 [L]

Where as on my Ubuntu VM or EngineHosting this works

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

Try removing the "?" after index.php

Answer 3

If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot get mod_rewrite turned on, I have seen this used in .htaccess files (credits to Elliot Haughin):

<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
    ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
</IfModule>