Multisites returning 404 error after htaccess change

If you rename the .htaccess file (again) to .htaccess.bak2, you still should be able to log into the admin console of your main site. You should re-create your .htaccess file which should be availabe in the console.

I am able to log in to the admin area. The big issue is getting the 404 error on all of the multisite other than the main domain. Each time I attempt to rename the htaccess file, it shows an internal server error. And it is still horribly slow.

When you log into your main site, go to the Network setup menu which will show you .htaccess settings – https://yoursite.domain.com/wp-admin/network/setup.php

Create a brand new .htaccess file with those settings.

Here are the settings it gave me on that page.

WP-CONFIG:
define(‘MULTISITE’, true);
define(‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, false);
define(‘DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘www.getalittletwisted.com’);
define(‘PATH_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘/’);
define(‘SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1);
define(‘BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1);

HTACCESS:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]

# uploaded files
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$2 [L]

# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ – [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

I pasted the wp-config code into the wp-config file, and I created a new htaccess file with the above code. Now I am getting an internal server error on all multisites, which I feel is a step forward considering I have been getting a 404 error on all the subsites until now. I just need to figure out why the internal error is showing up.

W3TotalCache may still be causing problems. Did you delete the W3TotalCache plugin?

I searched the public_html folder for all occurences of “W3” and it said there were none. Could GoDaddy make it go this slow? I have never experienced such a slow site.

W3TotalCache will be in the plugins directory:
<WP base>/wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache

It is possible that another plugin is causing problems. One solution is to rename your plugins directory to something like ‘plugins.bak’

For further debugging you should turn on debugging in wp-config.php:

define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true);

I removed that folder and all other occurrences of the W3 plugin yesterday. I renamed the plugins folder and that did not make a difference. Changing the theme did not make a difference. I can’t figure this out.

Now I get the following message when I visit a subsite:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 72 bytes) in /home/twistedjranch/public_html/wp-includes/option.php on line 172

The site was just working well for about thirty minutes. The speed was much better and all of the sites were working. Now, it has returned to it’s ridiculously slow speed and the sub-sites are not showing up. What is going on?!

IMO, you should rename your plugins directory (and leave it that way till you fix the problem) and change your theme to a default/standard one. Try that for a while and see if it fixes your problem.

Note that the memory error is due to php consuming memory to store WP stuff. 67Mb is a lot already. You can increase it, but IMO it is due to another issue – https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Editing_wp-config.php#Increasing_memory_allocated_to_PHP

W3TC also puts in files like advanced-cache.php in wp-content so check for those.

Out of memory. That’s fun. What kind of hosting plan are you on and how many plugins are you running?