Permalinks

Using the 5 minute install directions, I made a remote install to mess around with WordPress remotely. Adding themes and plug-ins are extremely easy, so I am just fooling with the interface. My brother-in-law wants a portfolio site, so I am making him one in WordPress as well. I may or may not post the link: not sure if I should just post about one site in this blog. However, any lessons learned will definitely be posted here.

While changing themes, I decided to add a permalink to one of the pages; this is a similar concept to search engine friendly links in Joomla! However, when I did this, I got a 500 error on my server. From what I can tell, I should not have tried to add a permalink without first configuring the .htaccess file. I have read through this article 5 or 4 times, but still cannot quite figure out what I need to change in the file. Moreover, I cannot access my site backend due to my error. This is no big deal since I was just playing with the interface, so if I have to delete it all and start over, I am not too worried. I do want to figure out how to add permalinks and will continue to work on this.

UPDATE:

I have tried numerous things to make this work, but am still at a loss.

The root issue seems to be that whenever an .htaccess file is added to my server–with countless iterations–I get a 500 error; I even get an error when using the method from within the WordPress Dashboard (Settings>Permalinks): this method also creates an .htaccess file on the server. This makes me think my host does not allow them, although my contact at the company seems to think it is allowed. Therefore, I put in a trouble ticket on this issue today. The issues is hard to decipher since I don’t have control panel access to my account…

YET ANOTHER UPDATE:

This issue has to do with my host. I tried to enact permalinks using the method shown below on another host–hostgator–and was able to get it to work properly:

The lesson I learned is that if you try to enact permalinks in this manner and your site–and admin–have a 500 server error, your host probably does not like your .htaccess file created by WordPress. To get your site back, FTP to the folder your installation resides, make sure to enable ‘Show Hidden Files’ in your FTP client, and delete the .htaccess file. From there, your site and admin login will reappear.

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