How to solve “.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable”

My error log shows:-

[Sun Jul 13 01:15:32 2008] [crit] [client 218.208.xxx.xxx] (13)Permission denied: /home/mydomain/public_html/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable

And the site is showing “403 Forbidden Error”.
At first, I suspect it’s .htaccess problem, but actually it’s caused by Frontpage Extension.

To solve “.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable” follow the steps below:-

18 Responses to “How to solve “.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable””

johni says:

April 5, 2014 at 6:07 pm

nossa sou do brasil e ninguem aqui resolveu meu problema so vocÃª mesmo s2 valeu
CH says:

September 14, 2012 at 4:12 am

I love you
victor momanyi says:

October 26, 2011 at 12:12 am

The permissions 4 www folder 755 for .htaccess 744 also works, kudos 2all ua suggestions
Nathe says:

November 17, 2010 at 8:50 pm

solved the problem! thanks … you are my hero XD
chua says:

October 20, 2010 at 10:28 am

May be your file permission having some problem
please check when this error occurs and normally this is due to folder permission problem
i had once with folder permission problem where i chmod my folder to 644 and this error occur
right after i chmod 755 to the folder and everything fix.

u can try to check if this is the problem.
Hope this helps
chua says:

October 20, 2010 at 10:23 am

Mur, r u using CPanel?
if yes may be u can test the steps above
mur says:

October 20, 2010 at 3:07 am

hi there..
Well the problem is i am running my own web server on a dedicated server.. so how do i solve this then??

I am definitely not running frontpage extensions
Jo says:

June 7, 2010 at 2:11 pm

You are my hero! Thank you
Mara Mora says:

June 2, 2010 at 9:48 pm

Thanks for this post. You saved me. transferring my flders and Frontpage extension from VPS to VMWare.

Thanks for your post.

Best regards
AsoeLaoet says:

April 2, 2010 at 1:53 am

Thanks … very good posting ..
Permission denied: xxx/public_html/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: GONE!
keep posting bro!
robotech says:

March 5, 2010 at 11:02 am

——-UM oops another update – ————————–

OOps I lost access to the folder with 665 so um – lest stick with 775?

Heheheh
robotech says:

March 5, 2010 at 10:58 am

Update!!!!!——————————————-

—————-665 permissions works and is safer!!!————————-

At least using a software called coffee cup HTML you can put the permissions to 665 – that way the world can not write to it – I guess the moral here was to give the DIR execute permissions———————-

Sure hope this helps some one – and protects them – Sory for the fake email addy too! 😉
robotech says:

March 5, 2010 at 10:52 am

Looks like I had to make the folder 777 – I dont like that but it is working – so Ill play with it and let ya all know if you can back 777 down at all like to say 775 ?
zanlok says:

February 13, 2010 at 6:43 pm

THANK YOU!

This just saved me a boatload of time. Can’t say how I messed my server up so madly, but me converting everything over to use svn (as root) made a the sites totally die even when I chowned things to the users. This cleared it up and I would *never* have guessed what the problem was!
Franco says:

February 13, 2009 at 2:00 am

cool….ill buy u tons of drinks 😀
Rui Cruz says:

January 3, 2009 at 3:44 am

Thank you,

This solve my issue!

Rui
john says:

September 14, 2008 at 12:35 pm

THANKS!! great post. This helped me solve my problem very quickly
j0k3r says:

July 27, 2008 at 7:35 pm

Also you’d check owner and chmod of files/dirs 😉