The requested URL /shop/...web-special-p-5.html was not found on this server

Moving the ZenCart (1.38a) store "as is" from one server to another. Domain remains the same. I'm now getting the error:

"The requested URL /shop/forward-arch-corrective-orthotic-web-special-p-5.html was not found on this server."

I'm assuming that the cart is dynamically creating this page.

Checked permissions on all directories in the cart, apache user has read/write permissions in all directories and all files. Admin works fine and checked the Specials and everything there looks good, and as expected (enabled..etc..).

Any suggestions as to what I can check that might be hanging this up..

Thanks for any suggestions..

John...

Have you checked the .htaccess file for changes ?

Is mod_rewrite working in Apache?

djdavedawson:

Have you checked the .htaccess file for changes ?

No did not touch it, and it is there.. The paths on this server are exactly the same as the paths on the original server.

djdavedawson:

Is mod_rewrite working in Apache?

Ran

httpd -M

and yes rewrite_module is loaded

Thanks for your suggestions.. Any other ideas..??

John..

Your URL-rewrite addon isn't properly configured on your new server.

DrByte:

Your URL-rewrite addon isn't properly configured on your new server.

Thanks.. Could you be a bit more specific.. "addon" ? I looked at the SEO URL settings and saw nothing that needed changed or edited.

Confirmed that mod_rewrite is active, the htaccess is exactly the same, the paths and settings are exactly the same, the virtual host settings are exactly the same. Obviously there is something else you are referring to..

???

A stock Zencart site would never create a URL in this format:* /shop/forward-arch-corrective-orthotic-web-special-p-5.html*, so you must have some sort of URL rewriting mod added to your site.

BTW - as I Understand it, even if you insist on rewriting your store's URLs, adding the .html extension is not a good idea.

stevesh:

A stock Zencart site would never create a URL in this format:* /shop/forward-arch-corrective-orthotic-web-special-p-5.html*, so you must have some sort of URL rewriting mod added to your site.

Ah, good info, thanks.. Please understand I just inherited this problem. I have done a number of ZenCarts where I install it fresh and style it.. Never encountered this issue before. I wondered about that .htaccess file.

stevesh:

BTW - as I Understand it, even if you insist on rewriting your store's URLs, adding the .html extension is not a good idea.

I don't insist. I'm assuming I can remove the .htaccess file and give that a test.. There is one section in that file that is labeled "Ultimate SEO Urls" and that is where I think this is generated..

I'll give this a test and see if that does the trick..

Thanks again..

John..

Ok.. I removed ALL htaccess files in throughout the shop folder structure (renamed only), restarted the apache service, cleared all browser caches. Even tested in another browser on another machine that has NEVER been to that site.

Exact Same error.. This is really strange..

It does appear to have the format of ONE the htaccess rewrites but that is no longer there:

RewriteRule ^(.)-p-(.).html$ index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

but this file is now completely removed..???

Ideas on what I'm missing here..?

You're looking at the rewrites backwards.

Your PHP code is writing the wrong URLs (the ones with the words in them and the .html in the end). You need to disable whatever plugin is doing that, or remove the code that's doing it.

Without the rewrite rules IN your .htaccess to MATCH what your PHP code is creating, your server won't know what to do with those bad URLs. Thus it's throwing the 404 ("not found") errors.

So: tell your ZC to stop creating URLs that require rewriting, and then your lack of working .htaccess rules won't be an issue.
"How" you do that depends on whatever plugins you've got installed that are doing something other than what ZC does out-of-the-box.

jbmoore:

... Confirmed that mod_rewrite is active, the htaccess is exactly the same, the paths and settings are exactly the same, the virtual host settings are exactly the same. ...
Best advice to get it back up fast:
As others have pointed out disable the module generating the alternative URLs. Keep in mind if this was a well established site, running without the altered URLs may result in a negative hit to the ranking of your pages in SEs.

Next you will want to determine WHAT is different on the new server and why the mod_rewrite directives in your ".htaccess" file are not taking effect. Obviously something is different, or you would not be seeing 404 errors. If you are on a "managed" VPS, you may be able to ask your hosting provider to take a look...

Lastly, decide if you really want / need alternative URLs. Is there is business purpose? If you do not want / need them, disable the module generating the alternative URLs and have someone alter the mod_rewrite directives to generate 301 redirects back to the stock Zen Cart URLs...

I'd highly recommend (no matter what you decide) to upgrade to Zen Cart 1.5.1 (or at least 1.3.9h)... The new versions include MANY fixes, security patches, performance tweaks, and support for newer versions of MySQL and PHP. In addition updated versions of many plugins (add-ons, modules, themes) are not available for Zen Cart 1.3.8.

DrByte:

You're looking at the rewrites backwards.

That may be... I have used rewrites off and on, strictly in a "formula" sense, never really took the time to dig into them.

But I did find the problem and it was something related but different. Apparently the latest Apache HTTP sets the default under the <Directory "/usr....."> for the document root as:

AllowOverrides None

..when the default previously was

AllowOverrides All

(This controls what directives in the htaccess file get acted upon. Actually, I'm going to review this and make sure one of the other settings might be better security wise)

Anyway..that fixed it..

What led me to this is that I'm also moving some wordpress sites at the same time and they were also choking with a similar error... This got me comparing the httpd.conf files and that was when I discovered that difference.

Thanks EVERYONE for all of your help and I will revisit the whole rewrite/plugin issue for the ZenCart site AFTER I get everything working and stabilized.. (Since the previous developer had hacked it, based on comments here, which I really appreciate.)

John..