"File does not exist" in apache error log

htaccess apache mod-rewrite 404

25,322

Solution 1

You are trying to match a path that starts with a letter or number, but it starts with a '/'. Your rules should be something like

RewriteRule ^/([A-Za-z0-9-])/...$      ...

Alos, do you have access to the logs? If so, enable the logs for mog_rewrite

RewriteLog /some/path
RewriteLogLevel 3

Solution 2

If your Rewrite rules are in an .htaccess file, you need to have at least

AllowOverride FileInfo

in your apache configuration.

And you also need to have

Options FollowSymLinks

If your server configuration has

AllowOverride FileInfo Options

(or AllowOverride All) then you can also add Options FollowSymlinks to the .htaccess file.

Solution 3

There is a decent chance that the error doe not come from the page itself but rather from an element on the page.

Example: <img src="img/bla.jpg"/> would point to /female/dresses/img/bla.jpg instead of /img/bla.jpg.

Because the server first checks for the female folder when it's searching for the bla.jpg, it will never give the error on the element itself

25,322

Admin

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

Admin almost 2 years

This is an example of an error in out log file:

File does not exist: /var/www/website/female, referer: http://www.example.com/female/dresses/A-Dress-Black

/female does not physically exist, because we use friendly URLs via our .htaccess file which looks like this:

RewriteEngine On # Turn on the rewriting engine
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{http_host} !^www.website.com$ [nc]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.website.com/$1 [r=301,nc,L]
RewriteRule ^News/?$ news.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^About/?$ about.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Contact/?$ contact.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Sign-In/Create-Account?$ sign_up_in.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Logout?$ sign_up_in.php?l=1 [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Your-Bag?$ your_bag.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Help?$ help.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Profile?$ profile.php [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^Create-Profile?$ profile_create.php [NC,L]
# ITEM
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z-]+)/([A-Za-z-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ store_focus.php?sex=$1catName=$2&permalink=$3 [NC,L]
# PAGE
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z-]+)/([A-Za-z-]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ store.php?sex=$1&catName=$2&page=$3 [NC,L]
# CATEGORY
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z-]+)/([A-Za-z-]+)/?$ store.php?sex=$1&catName=$2 [NC,L]
# SEX
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z-]+)/?$ store.php?sex=$1 [NC,L]

Every request for a page results in an error even though the site works fine. Has anyone encountered this before?

Admin over 13 years

I still haven't got to the bottom of this... really annoying!
LazyOne almost 13 years

Asked April 2010 .. Last answer Feb 2011, OP's last comment dated March 2011 .. and still no solution? Doh. 1) There is missing & in ITEM rule: store_focus.php?sex=$1catName= should be store_focus.php?sex=$1&catName= 2) Individual pages rewrite rules have missing / before ?: ^Profile?$ should be ^Profile/?$

Admin about 14 years

Hmm, that's not it. The hyphen can be anywhere outside of a range, unescaped.
Admin about 14 years

Sometimes the log just looks like this: [Wed Apr 14 15:18:37 2010] [error] [client 81.138.14.83] File does not exist: /var/www/website/female
Admin about 14 years

so you think it should be RewriteRule ^/([A-Z......... ?
Admin about 14 years

Unfortunately It gives me an error when I add a "/". Do you really need the "/" if you have RewriteBase = "/" ---- The requested URL /female/just-arrived/page/1 was not found on this server.
Admin about 14 years

I do not think RewriteBase does what you think... Try remove it.
Admin about 14 years

No difference, damn!
Admin about 14 years

Edited my answer with more ideas
Admin about 14 years

Ah good idea.. didn't realise you could log rewrites. I've got the log here: 79.125.18.68/rwlog.txt Just trying to make some sense of it.
Admin about 14 years

From the log, it seems to be working. Do you still have problems?
Admin about 14 years

We don't have any problems per se, just entries in the log saying it thinks there are problems!
Admin over 13 years

I don't use .htacces..All options are set in the VHost.
francadaval almost 11 years

Thank you! I had the same problem and in my case it was because the web browser was searching for the favincon.png file with a relative path.
MrWhite over 3 years

The OP has stated that "the site works fine", so the .htaccess rules must already be working satisfactorily. If the problem was to do with AllowOverride or Options then the site wouldn't work at all.
MrWhite over 3 years

"There is a decent chance that the error doe not come from the page itself" - although the URL quoted in the error log would seem to be the "page itself"?
MrWhite over 3 years

"The hyphen can be anywhere outside of a range, unescaped." - yes, at the start or end of the character class.
MrWhite over 3 years

"so you think it should be RewriteRule ^/([A-Z......... ?" - No, the RewriteRule pattern should only be prefixed with / (ie. root-relative) if the directive is used in a server or virtualhost context, not .htaccess.
MrWhite over 3 years

"...but it starts with a /" - The URL-path that the RewriteRule pattern matches against does not start with a slash when used in .htaccess (directory context). That would only apply if the directives are being used directly in a server or virtualhost context (which does not apply here).