Changing Permalinks settings breaks my site (Error 404)

My situation is almost exactly the same as this one with the exception that I have wordpress installed on an Ubuntu Server (running in a virtual machine).

I’ve enabled mod_rewrite and changed the permissions on the .htaccess file in my wordpress directory to allow writing. Also I changed my default site in the sites-avaiable to wordpress (reflecting the directory that all of my wordpress content/settings are located in).

I can go to https://dcky-wp-test/ which is my hostname for the virtual machine, and it loads up the page regardless of which permalink structure is set up. However, if I have any setting aside from the default, no other pages load. They all give 404 Errors.

Here is my complete .htaccess file from the wordpress directory (there isn’t one in /var/www, so that’s not the problem)

Options +FollowSymlinks
# BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    <IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
        BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
        BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
        BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
        BrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
    </IfModule>
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
    </IfModule>
    <IfModule mod_filter.c>
        AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css application/x-javascript text/x-$
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>
<FilesMatch "\.(css|js|htc|CSS|JS|HTC)$">
    FileETag None
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
         Header set X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.4"
    </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.(html|htm|rtf|rtx|svg|svgz|txt|xsd|xsl|xml|HTML|HTM|RTF|RTX|SVG|$
    FileETag None
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
         Header set X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.4"
    </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.(asf|asx|wax|wmv|wmx|avi|bmp|class|divx|doc|docx|eot|exe|gif|gz|$
    FileETag None
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
         Header set X-Powered-By "W3 Total Cache/0.9.2.4"
    </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
# END W3TC Browser Cache
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

And here is the wordpress.conf file from my /etc/apache2/sites-available directory

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/wordpress/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
        <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Here is the default.conf file from the same directory

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride all
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride all
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
        <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride all
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

I also posted this question (without the files) in the HowTo-Troubleshooting forum, but found another similar posting there which had a reply stating that it belonged in this forum. So I’m reposting here, in hopes that I get an answer.

Thanks, and have a great day:)
Patrick.