We have had the Advanced Rewrite 0.24 mod installed for quite some time, and occasionally users report receiving "page not found" errors when accessing any page on our website. The problems have increased lately - it is still a small percentage, but it leads me to believe that it is .htacess related. We also have the GYM Sitemaps mod installed as well. Some users are able to resolve it by resetting their router (or using a proxy).

Here is our live .htacess:

Code: Select all

#<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
#RewriteEngine On
#RewriteBase /
#</IfModule>

# You could need to un-comment the following line
#Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

#########################################################
# forums SEO REWRITE RULES            #
#########################################################
# AUTHOR : DCZ http://www.forums-seo.com/
# STARTED : 01/2006
#####################################################
# FORUMS PAGES
########################
# FORUM INDEX (un-comment if used)
# RewriteRule ^forums/index\.html$ /forums/index.php [QSA,L,NC]
# FORUM PROTECTION RULE
# RewriteRule ^forums/[a-z0-9_-]+/([^/]+\.html)$ /forums/index.php [R=301,L,NC]
# CATEGORIES
RewriteRule ^forums/[a-z0-9_-]*-c([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/index.php?c=$1 [QSA,L,NC]
# PAGINATED FORUM
RewriteRule ^forums/[a-z0-9_-]*-f([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewforum.php?f=$1&start=$2 [QSA,L,NC]
# FORUM
RewriteRule ^forums/[a-z0-9_-]*-f([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewforum.php?f=$1 [QSA,L,NC]
# PAGINATED TOPIC
RewriteRule ^forums/[a-z0-9_-]*-t([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2 [QSA,L,NC]
# TOPIC
RewriteRule ^forums/[a-z0-9_-]*-t([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1 [QSA,L,NC]
# POST
RewriteRule ^forums/post([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?p=$1 [QSA,L,NC]
#PROFILES
RewriteRule ^forums/member([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=$1 [QSA,L,NC]
# END forums PAGES
#####################################################

#########################################################
# GYM SITEMAPS AND RSS REWRITE RULES         #
#########################################################
# AUTHOR : dcz http://www.forums-seo.com/
# STARTED : 2006/02/22
########################
# RSS main
RewriteRule ^forums/rss-?(l|s)?-?(m)?\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/rss.php?$1&$2 [L]
# RSS forums
RewriteRule ^forums/forums-rss-?(l|s)?-?(m)?\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/rss.php?forum&c&$1&$2 [L]
# RSS all
RewriteRule ^forums/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)-rss([0-9]*)-?(l|s)?-?(m)?\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/rss.php?$1=$2&$3&$4 [L]
# RSS forum topics
RewriteRule ^forums/.+-rf([0-9]+)-?(l|s)?-?(m)?\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/rss.php?forum=$1&$2&$3 [L]
# SitemapIndex
RewriteRule ^forums/sitemaps\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/sitemap.php [L]
# Sitemap modules
RewriteRule ^forums/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)-sitemap\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/sitemap.php?$1 [L]
# Forum Sitemaps
RewriteRule ^forums/.+-gf([0-9]+)\.(xml(\.gz)?)$ /forums/sitemap.php?forum=$1 [L]
# Yahoo! urllist.txt
RewriteRule ^forums/urllist\.(txt(\.gz)?)$ /forums/urllist.php [L]
#########################################################
# END GYM SITEMAPS AND RSS REWRITE RULES      #
#########################################################

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /shoes/index.php [L]

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Would help out to know the guilty urls. But if playing with their rooter / proxy does help, then I would think that it's a client side issue.

Though :

Code: Select all

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /shoes/index.php [L]

could create some edge cases.
Do you actually want to address all files that do not exist there, even from other directories ?

dcz wrote:Would help out to know the guilty urls. But if playing with their rooter / proxy does help, then I would think that it's a client side issue.

Though :

Code: Select all

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /shoes/index.php [L]

could create some edge cases.
Do you actually want to address all files that do not exist there, even from other directories ?

Users are receiving the error when viewing ANY URL within any directory (ie, http://www.solecollector.com but also http://www.solecollector.com/forums/). I believe it is client side as well, since the majority of users have no problem, but perhaps a bit of tweaking can fix it for all users. Some users report that the problem goes away after a few days as well, which is very strange..

We actually do not need that rule anymore (since we do not use the /shoes/ directory anymore). Should I just comment out those three lines and see if it makes any difference? Thanks.

Please try to.

Have you changed server or DNS recently ? Could explain the fact that the issue disappeared by itself.

I'd prefer to see the last touch though.

++

dcz wrote:Please try to.

Have you changed server or DNS recently ? Could explain the fact that the issue disappeared by itself.

I'd prefer to see the last touch though.

++

I've tried commenting out those three lines, however, the users who are experiencing the issue report that it is still there. We have not changed anything recently. There have been more users (two have contacted me) who also get the "server not found" issue, and this is after the users who reported that it disappeared after a few days. So the issue is still present.

Yes, I will look for a place to add to a link, but at this point, we are considering uninstalling the mod if it is blocking out some users (albeit a small minority). Any other suggestions? Thanks for the help.

Well, if it's a client side issue, there could just be no fix at all beside using another browser and / or firewall.
If not client side, I really doubt it could be due to our mod, but rather to the server itself, for example reaching some load limit. Have you looked for a relation between the event and the server load ?

Be careful if you later choose to uninstall the mod, you will need to do as when you went from natural to rewritten url, eg implement appropriate redirecting.

++

dcz wrote:Well, if it's a client side issue, there could just be no fix at all beside using another browser and / or firewall.
If not client side, I really doubt it could be due to our mod, but rather to the server itself, for example reaching some load limit. Have you looked for a relation between the event and the server load ?

Be careful if you later choose to uninstall the mod, you will need to do as when you went from natural to rewritten url, eg implement appropriate redirecting.

++

Users have tried other browsers and I have advised them to check their firewall settings, but nothing. Our site is the only site this occurs on for them.

Yes, I will work on redirecting and then work on uninstalling the mod if there is no solution to this. Thanks anyways for the help.

Converting to phpBB3 could be wise too at this point, would most likely solve all issue while not compromising your indexing and ranking in search engines.

Since it's already The end of phpBB2 :

NeoThermic wrote:The reason for the early retirement is the PHP Group's decision to retire PHP 4. phpBB 2.0 mainly runs on the PHP 4 codebase and it would be unwise to require people to have an unsupported version of PHP installed in order to use phpBB.

Still using php4 ?

dcz wrote:Converting to phpBB3 could be wise too at this point, would most likely solve all issue while not compromising your indexing and ranking in search engines.

Since it's already The end of phpBB2 :

NeoThermic wrote:The reason for the early retirement is the PHP Group's decision to retire PHP 4. phpBB 2.0 mainly runs on the PHP 4 codebase and it would be unwise to require people to have an unsupported version of PHP installed in order to use phpBB.

Still using php4 ?

No, we are actually using PHP 5.2.8. I would love to convert to BB3, but it's simply not feasible given the modifications we have installed. The issue was not present prior to installing the advanced SEO mod (nor upgrading to PHPB5), so I assume there must be a way to continue to use phpBB2 with the advanced SEO rewrite mod installed.

To make it short, you're using an unsupported script that never was meant to work with the version of php you're using (and by the way does not actually).
So what's not feasible may just be to continue using phpBB2, while converting to phpBB3 will always be.

Though, the 404 error you encounter really looks like server side. Your solution could be to stop using mod_rewrite, but that could be a pity for your SERP, and by the way, would require some work to properly redirect rewritten url back to the natural ones. Or you could just live with this occasional issue until you would not have the choice to convert to phpBB3 (which is quite likely to occur one day or the other) or even try another host that may just not have the issue with mod_rewrite (which yours should in the first place).

To conclude, none of the above are phpBB or even phpBB SEO mods issues to me.