Bolt makes extensive use of a common feature called \u2018url rewriting\u2019. This basically means that you can request a pretty url like This doesn\u2019t work out-of-the-box on all web servers, but it is<\/em> a hard requirement for using Bolt. If you\u2019re reading this page, you are likely in the process of setting up Bolt and after requesting the first page, you got redirected to the page One of the three following possibilities is giving you problems:<\/p>\n The simplest way to test if apache uses your Edit the Now, if you refresh the page in your browser, you should see an error page like this:<\/p>\n If you see this error, that\u2019s actually good<\/strong>! This means that Apache is parsing the If you do not<\/em> see an \u2018Internal Server Error\u2019, your Apache setup ignores the Example:<\/p>\n If you are not sure if the This is correct:<\/p>\n To test if This is correct:<\/p>\n There are a plethora of reasons why it might not work on your system, and these reasons vary so wildly, that we can\u2019t give an exhaustive solution for that. That said, here are a few pointers that might help you fix it:<\/p>\n It\u2019s unusual, but possible that Change the Be sure to restart Apache after making any modifications to this file. Now, your If your site is hosted elsewhere, check your control panel (Plesk, DirectAdmin, CPanel, whatever) to see if you can enable There are a number of ways to enable Apache logs a lot<\/em> of stuff. Inspect the \u2018access\u2019 and \u2018error\u2019 logs generated by Apache to see if they contain valuable information. A common location for these files is If you\u2019re setting up Bolt in a subfolder, you might have to uncomment the line for the Change<\/p>\n to:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re setting up Bolt in a subfolder and the previous tip doesn\u2019t work, you might try setting up Bolt in it\u2019s own subdomain, since that usually gives less problems. So, instead of using Ask your webhost what might be wrong. The more info you give them, the bigger the chance that they might be able to help you out.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re setting up Apache on your own computer, and it\u2019s turning out to be hard to configure, you should consider using XAMPP<\/a> (Windows), MAMP<\/a> (OS X) or AMPPS<\/a> (Windows, OS X, Linux).<\/p>\n\/page\/about-this-website<\/code> in your browser, and behind the scenes your web server will just \u2018translate\u2019 this to run the index.php<\/code> with the correct parameters, so that Bolt can produce the correct page for you.<\/p>\n\/bolt\/userfirst<\/code>, where you saw the following error message:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.pirulug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/htaccess-4.webp\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
.htaccess<\/code> altogether<\/li>\nTest if
.htaccess<\/code> is working\u00b6<\/a><\/h2>\n.htaccess<\/code> file, or if it otherwise ignores it, is to intentionally break it.<\/p>\n.htaccess<\/code> file, so the first line reads \u2018Test.\u2019:<\/p>\nTest.\n\n# Set the default handler\nDirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm\n\n...\n\n<\/code><\/pre>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.pirulug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/htaccess-2.webp\")
<\/a><\/p>\n.htaccess<\/code> file, and it encounters the error we\u2019ve put in there! So far, so good!<\/p>\n.htaccess<\/code> file, and you need to fix that. Generally, Apache ignores the .htaccess<\/code> file because of the following Apache configuration AllowOverride none<\/code>. Check your virtual host configuration and add\/amend to AllowOverride All<\/code>.<\/p>\n <Directory \/var\/www\/site\/example.com\/>\n Options Indexes FollowSymLinks\n AllowOverride All\n Require all granted\n <\/Directory>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n.htaccess<\/code> file exists and is readable, download our test script:<\/p>\n\n
htaccess_tester.php<\/code>, if needed.<\/li>\nfile:\/\/<\/code>)<\/li>\n.htaccess<\/code> file exists and is readable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.pirulug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/htaccess-3.webp\")
<\/a><\/p>\nTest if
mod_rewrite<\/code> is working\u00b6<\/a><\/h2>\nmod_rewrite<\/code> is working correctly, do the following:<\/p>\n\n
htaccess_tester.php<\/code>, if needed.<\/li>\n.htaccess<\/code> file with the contents as below.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>\n RewriteEngine On\n RewriteRule ^.*$ htaccess_tester.php\n<\/IfModule>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
\/test<\/code>, with the correct domain name. So, it should look like http:\/\/localhost\/test<\/code> or http:\/\/example.org\/test<\/code>.<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.pirulug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/htaccess-1.webp\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMy htaccess is broken? What do?\u00b6<\/a><\/h2>\n
Enable
.htaccess<\/code> in your httpd.conf<\/code> or apache.conf<\/code>\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n.htaccess<\/code> is not enabled on your site. If you are hosting it yourself, it\u2019s easy enough to fix. Open your httpd.conf<\/code> or apache.conf<\/code> in a text editor, and locate the <Directory><\/code> section:<\/p>\n<Directory "\/var\/www\/htdocs">\n AllowOverride None\n<\/code><\/pre>\nAllowOverride<\/code> line to:<\/p>\n AllowOverride All\n<\/code><\/pre>\n.htaccess<\/code> should work. You can also make this change inside a virtual host, which would normally be preferable, but that depends on the way Apache is set up.<\/p>\n.htaccess<\/code> there. If not, contact your hosting provider to do it for you.<\/p>\nEnable
mod_rewrite<\/code> in Apache\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\nmod_rewrite<\/code>, in case it\u2019s not yet enabled on your setup. See this Stack Overflow thread for various ways this may be done on different setups: How to enable mod_rewrite for Apache 2.2<\/a>.<\/p>\nInspect Apache\u2019s logfiles\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n
\/var\/log\/apache2\/<\/code>, but it might be in a different path on your system. Check your apache .conf<\/code> file to see where these files might be hiding.<\/p>\nEnabling Rewritebase\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n
RewriteBase<\/code> setting.<\/p>\n # Some servers require the RewriteBase to be set. If so, set to the correct folder.\n # RewriteBase \/\n<\/code><\/pre>\n # Some servers require the RewriteBase to be set. If so, set to the correct folder.\n RewriteBase \/\n<\/code><\/pre>\nMove your site to the \u2018top level\u2019\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n
http:\/\/example.org\/testingbolt<\/code>, set it up as http:\/\/testingbolt.example.org\/<\/code>.<\/p>\nContact your webhost\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n
Use a pre-configured build of Apache\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n
Use Nginx instead\u00b6<\/a><\/h3>\n