You should update your .htaccess now.

by garth on April 13, 2006

Welcome back!

If your directory permissions start off a little too tight, Wordpress might start off with an empty .htaccess file. The first symptom I noticed was 404 results on archives and comments. After much random browsing, I blundered across this solution:

  • Visit the Permalink options page (Options > Permalinks)
  • Hit the Update Permalink Structure button
  • Observe “You should update your .htaccess now” message at the top of the page
  • Express great frustration that you’re not being told with what you should update .htaccess now
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the page
  • Thwack self on forehead

I might still try out Justin Blanton’s Smart Archives plugin, but at least now I’ve got the archives — and comments — working.

{ 18 comments }

Bobbie 05.29.07 at 2:38 am

I love you. Something as so simple! I need to open my eyes.

Alex 06.15.07 at 11:00 pm

Ahahah
Many thanks man!

Joshua McLaughlin 08.06.07 at 10:26 pm

Quote: Thwack self on forehead.

DONE!

Bill Stagg 11.05.07 at 1:57 pm

Thanks for the tip. This is really an interface problem. WP should have either placed an anchor link or indicated that a message was below ;)

Aaron 11.14.07 at 4:28 am

pwnt! I did the same thing :P

Zone at ZoneDate.com 11.25.07 at 11:44 am

I had been racking my brain for almost an hour trying to figure this out until I did a Google search for that entire phrase, in quotes, and your blog entry obviously comes up.
THANK YOU for posting that information! That message should direct you to scroll to the bottom of the page, because when you see “You should update your .htaccess now”, the first thing I thought was “$#%@! Update it? WITH WHAT?! %$#%$#@!!”

marc cramer 11.29.07 at 11:50 am

consider me thwacked………

thanks garth (and see you in la ;))

Qrystal 12.03.07 at 1:20 am

Steps 1-3… check.

Step 4… Grrr… why isn’t this easier? Grrr…. (and after finally typing the exact message into search engine, and encountering this post)… oh, good, so being frustrated was part of the instructions.

Step 5… Scroll down? Huh? OH!!!

Step 6… Ow.

Doh 01.18.08 at 9:19 am

Doh!

Thanks a lot. They should have put that up the top! Might have stood a chance there instead of losing the 10 minutes it took to find your lovely site.

Good luck!

terrie 04.28.08 at 12:15 am

Thank you so much — I was baffled until I found your post. <thwack>

Web 2.0 Blog 05.24.08 at 12:47 am

Thanks for clearing that up. You’d think an established company like Wordpress wouldn’t have such obvious usability problems.

Matt 05.28.08 at 12:38 pm

So very glad I’m not the only one.

Thanks for pointing this out :)

Jorah 06.23.08 at 7:34 am

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

micgui 06.25.08 at 11:25 pm

Thanks so much. I thought I would lose my mind thinking how to do it ehehe… You are so great…

Cheers! XD

halexblue 09.07.08 at 2:01 pm

I was frustrated because you didn’t explain HOW we update the .htaccess

After thinking hard for minutes, I delete the content of the old .htaccess file and replace it with the one that wordpress provide. It works now.

My question is; is my way right?

Bogdan Adamut 09.28.08 at 8:26 am

I have updated htaccess file but still i get error 404 on my posts :(

Ross 11.01.08 at 9:55 pm

Found the code but unable to find .htacess file so I created one and uploaded to themes folder but still getting the message despite having chmod open . Any ideas?

Francois Botha 11.17.08 at 8:56 am

I should really get a higher resolution monitor. Then I would’ve seen that bottom part! Thanks again.

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