WordPress MU

Trying to install MU on LinkSky hosting and get this error

"A file with the name '.htaccess' already exists in this directory and I cannot write to it. Please ftp to the server and delete this file from this directory!
Offending file: /home/[MY ID]/public_html/.htaccess"

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

More curiouser ...

When I view the site's files via the FTP client in Dreamweaver, .htaccess isn't there. But viewed through LinkSky's file manager, it is ...

Well, it's Sunday morning at 9:02 Eastern, so who do I expect to be up but me and God. And while He knows exactly, and in a second, how to fix this problem, I don't have the frequency to tune into his transmission.

So what did I, frail human, do to improve the situation? I made it worse, that's what.

Specifically, I renamed "htacces.dist" to ".htaccess" in the hope that was the problem ... and I gor this message:

"Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@[DOMAINNAME].com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. "

You need to make public html 777 while you install.

The htaccess.dist file is a template for MU to create the htaccess file.

You can't see it via ftp because you don't have it set to show hidden files.

You also have to have wp-content at 777 as well.

Good morning, Lunabyte!

Well, I did/do have public html and wp-content set to 777 (I changed them when prompted by the install notes).

As regards seeing htaccess.dist, how I don't know, but I can see it both through the LinkSky file manager and through Dreamweaver's FTP cllent.

Any suggestions how to proceed?

You can see the htaccess.dist file through both because it's not a hidden file.

.htaccess is a hidden file, and why you can't see it through ftp. Your ftp program should have a setting to show hidden files.

I'd dump the current .htaccess file, and upload a blank one. Then, make sure it is writable, so set it at 666.

Note, there is a difference between htaccess.dist file, and the .htaccess file. Don't touch, modify, remove, rename, etc, the htaccess.dist file.

Hey, Lunabyte. Well, one step forward, two back, it seems.

Changing .htaccess to 666 helped move the install along (thank you). Up came a WPMU screen asking me to choose between subdomains (which I chose) and subdirectories, plus fields to fill in info about the db I'd created.

I filled these in (I thought correctly) but I got a series of error messages before finally -- when I decided to try removing a "%" from the localhost IP address (why I removed it, I don't know; I hadn't seen one before, so I thought it might be a problem) -- before finally that caused a "misconfiguration," "500 Internal Server Error" response.

And now I'm stuck. :(

Might help us help you if you told us what error messages you were getting. :)

Also the 500 error usually produces an error report in your host's backend's logs. You should check them.

Here's the last message from the Error Log ...

public_html/.htaccess: RewriteBase: argument is not a valid URL

Open up the .htaccess file and look at the (should be third) following line:

RewriteBase

It's probably set to somehting like

RewriteBase Base

or somesuch. try changeing it to:

RewriteBase /

and try again. :)

Well, editing .htaccess worked.

But when I try to access the index.php, I get this:

"No WPMU site defined on this host. If you are the owner of this site, please check Debugging WPMU for further assistance."

Meanwhile, LinkSky tech support told me this:

"I started to delete this file however it looks like it's been written to by WordPress:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase BASE/

# Rewrite http://www.domain.com to domain.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%1/$1 [R,L]

#uploaded files
RewriteRule ^(.*)?/?files/(.*) wp-content/blogs.php?file=$2 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule . - [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-.*) $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]"

Gotta take out BASE/, and make it just /

So it would look like:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

To be honest, if that doesn't cut it, grab a nightly version from http://blogs.linux.ie/download/wpmu/ and then wipe the current install (and drop all the tables in the db, then try it again.

I did a new install and I was up and running in minutes.

But the eight hours of doofing around, while mighty frustrating, were not wasted. It was good to take a look under the hood of WP. It was also good to see that the WP community is friendly and supportive.

Thanks Lunabyte and drmike! :)