joomla URL Rewriting/mod rewrite and error 404 complete mess

[hestia66]

does anyone know how can i make this work or is the mod rewrite disabled then, because i only get error 404 or 500 when the rewrite button is switched on?

https://docs.joomla.org/Enabling_Search_Engine_Friendly_(SEF)_URLs
 

[wolstech]

If it's on your plesk account, there's usually a log entry that will explain the 500 error. We do support mod rewrite.

Do you have a link to the broken site in question?

[hestia66]

so basically the 404 comes when i dont rename the access.txt file, but 500 probably comes because of this then(from the logs and after renaming):

.htaccess: Option FollowSymlinks not allowed here

but how can i fix that then

[wolstech]

That error is saying the Options line contains commands that are not supported. Did you try commenting out the Options line in .htaccess?

[hestia66]

i did not try that yet, but should i put this option back then?
https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/12377588480535-A-website-hosted-in-Plesk-shows-500-Internal-Server-Error-Option-FollowSymLinks-not-allowed-here

and it also seems that this tip even added 1 more unneeded symlink option to the same file then?
https://docs.joomla.org/Special:MyLanguage/How_to_check_if_mod_rewrite_is_enabled_on_your_server

[wolstech]

If you were able to turn that off, I would turn it back on. It's a good security feature.

Also, be aware that Options directives in .htaccess are broken for any user whose account was migrated from cPanel. Fixing that issue requires resetting your account. Your account has a 2019 date, so its definitely a migrated account. 

I would comment out any directives relating to symlinks from .htaccess. I'm not sure why Joomla's docs would suggest that be included as to my knowledge Joomla itself doesn't even use symlinks. Mod_rewrite should work without it provided there are no symlinks to be followed...

[hestia66]

ok, but what are the options directives even doing ("Options -Indexes" doesnt even do anything then?) and how would the account reset look like? deletion of all data?

but i think the restrict option did not even fix anything and it only started to work when i marked the symlink stuff off in the access file... altho not sure if it still would work if i switch the restrict option back on...

[wolstech]

Options -Indexes does nothing on our server because they're already off by default. Setting +Indexes (enable directory listings) will cause a 500 error on a cPanel-migrated account. On a normal Plesk account, +Indexes works in .htaccess but I believe it only works in subfolders (not in the root of a domain...it's ignored if used in the root).

If it's working with the symlink directive removed, I'd say just leave it be.

Yes an account reset would delete your data. You would need to back everything up, have the account reset, have the domains re-added, then set everything up again using the backups.