Thread

Yesterday morning I realized one of my template groups had started generating a 404 return when it was called. To my knowledge, there were no coding or settings changes made, and I still can’t figure out why this is happening. Here is the URL:

http://www.abort73.com/videos/

Strangely, the problem seems to be tied to the name “video”.

If I duplicate the template group and name it something that does not begin with “video”, it does not generate the 404 return. If the duplicated template group does begin with the word “video”, it generates the 404. For instance, /video2/ doesn’t work, but /vide2/ does:

http://www.abort73.com/vide2/

This continued to happen even after renaming my .htaccess file. I’m at a total loss…

This sounds like a possible issue with mod_security or some similar server side mechanism. Can you ask your host about it, please?

Here is the response from our host (EngineHosting):

We reviewed your account and your .htaccess and could not find anything that would cause EE to generate a 404. If EE is generating the 404, it does tell you that the server is handing off the URL path ‘videos’ and passing it to EE via index.php/ where EE tries to dispatch the request and fails with a 404 error handler.

Also notice that you do have a singular ‘video’ directory and you are excluding it in your htaccess rewrite rule for hiding index.php in your URL paths but this appears to be working correctly too.  You may want to keep your naming convention more clear between template names / groups and your static assets.

I’ve used this same naming convention (/videos template group, video directory, hiding index.php) for roughly two years. The 404 issue only started happening this week. What should I try next?

Hi abort73,

Can you rename your .htaccess file temporarily to remove that from the equation, and temporarily set your site’s index page in General Configuration back to “index.php” so we can be sure everything works with a “stock” setup? Which version and build are you using, as well?

We’re on version 1.6.8. I changed the name of the video directory and took the ‘video’ rewrite rule out of the .htaccess file. That solved the 404 problem. I’m still not sure what changed to make this necessary, but at least it’s working now.

abort73,

I’d suggest upgrading to 1.7 as there have been security updates since your version. In any case, it sounds like a rewrite rule issue to me, but I just wanted to confirm everything is still working before I close this one out. Thanks!