[Bug / Issue] vb5.3.3 ended up like this how

[Blueboon]

As this is a clean install i installed the vb.3.3 folowing the manual it all installed fine but this shows and everything was done right i get the forum in a white screen with working text on it help how can i fix this as i cant log in admincp as it just a parent directory only thing

[Mark.B]

There is a file in the root, called
htaccess.txt

Rename this to:
.htaccess

Note the "dot" at the start.

[Blueboon]

think i removed the. txt but it didnt come with a dot a t the begining may i as ky

[Mark.B]

You need to rename it so it DOES have a dot at the beginning.

[Blueboon]

oay tha bit fixed but why are other people getting 500 internal server error when they try to sign up to my forums it all works

[Trevor Hannant]

500 Internal Server Errors are just that - server errors. You or your host will need to examine the server's error logs and take the necessary corrective action to resolve this.

[Wayne Luke]

think i removed the. txt but it didnt come with a dot a t the begining may i as ky

Most customers use Windows as their personal workstations and Linux/Apache as their webservers.

It doesn't come with a period (.) at the begining because Windows has an archaic file naming system that considers everything after the period to be an extension. The Windows Explorer GUI cannot properly handle files without a name and only an extension properly. However, you can rename these in Window's command line interface without problem and they will work just fine. If we shipped it as .htaccess and you made modifications on the server side, then every time you upgraded you would overwrite your changes and your site could break.

It requires the period (.) at the beginning for two reasons. 1) Security. It tells Linux operating systems that it is a hidden file and not normally accessible through the command line or GUI tools. 2) It seems that many years ago, the period was hardcoded into Apache's request of the file to access the list of directions. Since Apache won't see the file without the period, it is required.

[glennrocksvb]

However, you can rename these in Window's command line interface without problem and they will work just fine.

There's a trick in Windows wherein if you rename htaccess.txt in Windows Explorer as .htaccess. (Note the leading and trailing dots), it will become .htaccess