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[Resolved] Pages failed to load because of sudden change in htaccess

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This topic contains 5 replies, has 3 voices.

Last updated by Andrey 1 year, 3 months ago.

Assisted by: Andrey.

Author Posts
September 26, 2023 at 8:10 am #14464053

arnoP-3

Hello,

The problem described here happened to me a few days ago: https://wpml.org/errata/htaccess-is-rewritten-with-language-folder/

This entire section in htaccess:

#The directives (lines) between "BEGIN WordPress" and "END WordPress" are
#dynamically generated, and should only be modified via WordPress filters.
#Any changes to the directives between these markers will be overwritten.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule . - [E=HTTPAUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]* RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] RewriteRule ^en/wp-login.php /wp-login.php [QSA,L] RewriteRule ^de/wp-login.php /wp-login.php [QSA,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] </IfModule>

... all of a sudden was replaced by a German version, which is the secondary language of the site. Even the above comment lines were German. All pages other than the homepage failed to load.

After some research, I found the problem and manually put the English version back. I have no idea what exactly caused it.

If I understand your article correctly, some other plugin than WPML probably messed with the htaccess file? If that happens, WPML gets confused but that can be prevented with the “temporary” workaround?

Is that still the workaround or is this built into WPML by now? In that case, it didn't seem to work for me.

Kind regards,
Arno
September 26, 2023 at 8:46 am #14464553

George Botsev
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Sofia (GMT+02:00)

Hello!
Can you provide more details please?
The erratum page that you mentioned is related to changes in the RewriteBase being changed.
The .htaccess snippet that you pasted does not exhibit this issue as far as I can see.

In that snippet, the only thing from WPML is these lines:

RewriteRule ^en/wp-login.php /wp-login.php [QSA,L] 
RewriteRule ^de/wp-login.php /wp-login.php [QSA,L]

They are related to the setting to translate the login pages, which you can turn off in WPML > Settings
Please refer to our documentation here: https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/translating-wordpress-login-and-registration-pages/
September 26, 2023 at 8:50 am #14464611

arnoP-3

Hi George,

The snipped I pasted was the original correct one. It contains "RewriteBase /".

It was "spontaneously" replaced by this:

#Die Anweisungen (Zeilen) zwischen „BEGIN WordPress“ und „END WordPress“ sind
#dynamisch generiert und sollten nur über WordPress-Filter geändert werden.
#Alle Änderungen an den Anweisungen zwischen diesen Markierungen werden überschrieben.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule . - [E=HTTPAUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]*
RewriteBase /de/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^en/wp-login.php /de/wp-login.php [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^de/wp-login.php /de/wp-login.php [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /de/index.php [L] </IfModule>
September 26, 2023 at 9:15 am #14465137

George Botsev
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Sofia (GMT+02:00)

Okay, so this is indeed the same issue.

The workaround is not implemented in WPML to my knowledge and you should have to apply it.
However, you've said that the issue is not fixed by it. This is a bit odd and the only thing that comes to my mind is possible influence by a 3rd party plugin.

I would like to suggest testing with a minimal set of plugins. I know this could be tricky...

Another option would be to try and obtain the `home_url()` by a different means - if in example something is modifying the value somehow, you can try to modify the errata workaround to something like this:

add_filter('mod_rewrite_rules', 'fix_rewritebase');
function fix_rewritebase($rules){
    global $wpdb;
    $option_name = 'home';
    $query = $wpdb->prepare("SELECT option_value FROM {$wpdb->prefix}options WHERE option_name = %s LIMIT 1", $option_name);
    $option_value = $wpdb->get_var($query);
    $home_root = parse_url($option_value);
    if ( isset( $home_root['path'] ) ) {
        $home_root = trailingslashit($home_root['path']);
    } else {
        $home_root = '/';
    }
 
    $wpml_root = parse_url(get_option('home'));
    if ( isset( $wpml_root['path'] ) ) {
        $wpml_root = trailingslashit($wpml_root['path']);
    } else {
        $wpml_root = '/';
    }
 
    $rules = str_replace("RewriteBase $home_root", "RewriteBase $wpml_root", $rules);
    $rules = str_replace("RewriteRule . $home_root", "RewriteRule . $wpml_root", $rules);
 
    return $rules;
}
September 26, 2023 at 10:04 am #14465661

arnoP-3

When I manually put the English version back in htaccess, the issue was actually fixed. My main worry now is that I don't know why it happened and would like to prevent it.

I guess the only thing I can do is put the "temporary" workaround in place. I thought it was part of WPML but I will have to do it myself, right?
September 26, 2023 at 2:25 pm #14467753

Andrey
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) Russian (Русский )

Timezone: Europe/Kyiv (GMT+02:00)

Thank you for your feedback. The issue might happen due to a combination of third-party plugins flush_rewrite_rules(true) function too often, as stated in the article.

Yes, you might need to use the workaround to prevent this from happening.

September 29, 2023 at 6:08 am #14485509

arnoP-3

Ok, I will do so and hope it will not happen again.