HTACCESS corrupted on install of this plugin

P.S. The site can be made functional by going back into my htaccess file after installing the plugin and changing the php handler back to the original version, but browser cookies do need to be cleared before the site is viewable again.

It sounds like a server misconfiguration or malware problem.

Are you installing the zip file from your hard drive or direct from www.ads-software.com?

Does the same thing happen for any other plugin?

Does it happen with ALL other plugins deactivated and Twenty Seventeen as the active theme?

Is your web host tech support able to shed any light?

Hi,
I also think the problem can be in the .htaccess file. If it’s generated automatically by WordPress and you haven’t edited it, that may be the problem.
Here is how it should looks like:

# 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
	# WP Maximum Execution Time Exceeded
	<IfModule mod_php5.c>
	
    php_value upload_max_filesize 1024M
	php_value post_max_size 2048M
	php_value max_input_time 3000

	php_value max_execution_time 3000

	</IfModule>

Hope that will help!

@pracko Any news on this?

Turns out that Siteground tech had to help me with this one. Seems that when I installed Strong Testimonials, the problem started. Tech had to crawl all WP files to find what was causing the handler to be changed. Here’s what they wrote:

You are right – the Handler was altered once more:

Code:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php70s .php

I have now manually commented out this handler and added the default one:

Code:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php70 .php .php5 .php4 .php3

I then changed the permissions of your .htaccess file to 444 so any program that attempts to write in it will be denied.

I also searched for this specific handler in your other files and I found it in one more place:

/home/account/public_html/dev/wp-content/mu-plugins/endurance-php-edge.php

This (Endurance PHP Edge) is a plugin that must have come from your previous host and I suspect that this was the cause for the .htaccess alterations all along.

This is the line that was commented out:

function htaccess_contents( $rules ) {
$handler = get_option( 'epe_php_handler', 'application/x-httpd-php70s' );
$handler = 'AddHandler ' . $handler . ' .php' . "\n";
return $handler . $rules;

Strange that the issue only cropped up immediately after Strong Testimonials though.

He then said:

I would strongly recommend removing the entire mu-plugins directory from your account (since it has no application here on SiteGround).

I deleted the entire mu-plugins folder from /home/account/public_html/dev/wp-content/ and it resolved the problem.