Stylesheet not working in admin section. Any ideas?

I've had Zen running on the site since July of last year. Everything is hunky-dorey and working fine. Since the initial install, CSS has never worked in the admin. All the links work, and it functions just fine, but it looks like a site map layout.

After initially searching for a solution to the problem and finding none, I decided I'd just live with it. Well, I just did another Zen install for a site I'm (re) building and the admin CSS works fine. This is now making the other site annoying.

So, once again I spent several hours today searching and trying to come up with a fix. Nada. I've compared all the files between the two sites and can see no difference. Admin/includes/configure.php admin,php index.php appear identical as do all the css files. The server references (https) are correct in the configure.php file.

Both sites are running 1.38a and both sites are with the same host running the same version of apache. The only modifications are the templates, EZBlue on the first, EZRed on the second and Googlebase.

Any ideas for me to try?

What happens to you when you visit your admin stylesheet URL directly? ie: 'http://www_your_domain.com/store_folder/admin_folder/includes/stylesheet.css

Most likely your server's .htaccess is blocking it.
ref: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=235

Already read that article. No help.

And ... what about the question I asked?

You mean loading the stylesheet directly? It won't load. It returns an accessed denied, (well actually it returns "Move along, nothing to see here", which is my custom message).

Okay, so that's a result of your server configuration. Likely your .htaccess.

Log a ticket with your hosting company to sort it out.

One of the many things I already tried is filing a support ticket with my host. It isn't anything on their end. I have two sites with the same host on the same server. One works, the other doesn't.

Okay, I just sent them another ticket explaining that it works on one site and not on the other. Maybe that'll give them an additional clue where to look for the problem.

If not, I suppose I can continue to live with it. Everything else works.

What's in your apache error_log when the "access denied" message (as you call it) appears?

[Mon May 03 20:53:40 2010] [crit] [client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] (13)Permission denied: (redacted information) : unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable

Perhaps that error message gives you some ideas?

DrByte:

Perhaps that error message gives you some ideas?

Yeah, it did get me to thinking in a different direction. Turns out the .htaccess file in admin/includes was corrupted. All the others on the site were fine, which is why the stylesheet was loading everywhere but admin. Uploaded a fresh copy, and all is well.

Thanks for the help!

I thought you'd looked at that .htaccess as a result of the FAQ article I mentioned in my first post. I guess not.

Glad that was the root cause all along, and not something more serious.