Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error

Question

I was trying to remove index.php from the URL of a Magento website: _Turn on “use webserver rewrite” _ Set permission 755 to necessary files and folders _ make sure mode rewrite is on _ configure htaccess file. comment, uncomment allow symlinks, change rewrite base from /magento/ to / or /var/www/hosts/www.domainname.com/ or /hosts/www.domainname.com/ or /www.domainname.com/ _reindex, flush cache

But all results in 500 server internal error. In the log file I can see:

[Fri Apr 20 11:11:59 2012] [error] [client 88.87.40.140] client denied by server configuration: /var/www/hosts/www.nordocks.no/app/etc/local.xml
[Fri Apr 20 11:12:07 2012] [error] [client 117.5.178.168] Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error.

And this is my .htaccess

############################################
## uncomment these lines for CGI mode
## make sure to specify the correct cgi php binary file name
## it might be /cgi-bin/php-cgi

#    Action php5-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-cgi
#    AddHandler php5-cgi .php

############################################
## GoDaddy specific options

#   Options -MultiViews

## you might also need to add this line to php.ini
##     cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
## if it still doesn't work, rename php.ini to php5.ini

############################################
## this line is specific for 1and1 hosting

    #AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
    #AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

############################################
## default index file

    DirectoryIndex index.php

<IfModule mod_php5.c>

############################################
## adjust memory limit

#    php_value memory_limit 64M
    php_value memory_limit 256M
    php_value max_execution_time 18000

############################################
## disable magic quotes for php request vars

    php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off

############################################
## disable automatic session start
## before autoload was initialized

    php_flag session.auto_start off

############################################
## enable resulting html compression

    #php_flag zlib.output_compression on

###########################################
# disable user agent verification to not break multiple image upload

    php_flag suhosin.session.cryptua off

###########################################
# turn off compatibility with PHP4 when dealing with objects

    php_flag zend.ze1_compatibility_mode Off

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_security.c>
###########################################
# disable POST processing to not break multiple image upload

    SecFilterEngine Off
    SecFilterScanPOST Off
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

############################################
## enable apache served files compression
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip

    # Insert filter on all content
    ###SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
    # Insert filter on selected content types only
    #AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript

    # Netscape 4.x has some problems...
    #BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html

    # Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
    #BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip

    # MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
    #BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

    # Don't compress images
    #SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary

    # Make sure proxies don't deliver the wrong content
    #Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>

############################################
## make HTTPS env vars available for CGI mode

    SSLOptions StdEnvVars

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

############################################
## enable rewrites

    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on

############################################
## you can put here your magento root folder
## path relative to web root

    #RewriteBase /

############################################
## workaround for HTTP authorization
## in CGI environment

    RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

############################################
## always send 404 on missing files in these folders

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(media|skin|js)/

############################################
## never rewrite for existing files, directories and links

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l

############################################
## rewrite everything else to index.php

    RewriteRule .* index.php [L]

</IfModule>


############################################
## Prevent character encoding issues from server overrides
## If you still have problems, use the second line instead

    AddDefaultCharset Off
    #AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

<IfModule mod_expires.c>

############################################
## Add default Expires header
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires

    ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"

</IfModule>

############################################
## By default allow all access

    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

###########################################
## Deny access to release notes to prevent disclosure of the installed Magento version

    <Files RELEASE_NOTES.txt>
        order allow,deny
        deny from all
    </Files>

############################################
## If running in cluster environment, uncomment this
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags

    #FileETag none

Please give me an instruction on how to deal with this error.

Answer 1

On my side it was not a permission problem but simply (and the same is in your .htaccess) the line with:

RewriteBase /

was commented. Uncommenting it solved the problem.

Answer 2

I ran into this issue aswell

adding

RewriteBase /

to the .htaccess brought me a step further. After this I ran into the next issue:

Could not determine temp directory, please specify a cache_dir manually";i:1;s:4307:"#0 /XXX/XXX/lib/Zend/Cache/Backend.php(217): Zend_Cache::throwException('Could not deter...')

Solution for this was to edit the

\lib\Zend\Cache\Backend\File.php

In the file.php search for

'cache_dir' => null,

and replace with

'cache_dir' => "var/tmp/",

I hope this saves somebody else some time.

Answer 3

Set permission 755 to necessary files and folders

You've hit a rock on this one. The permissions have been changed on items that need other permissions than 755 set.

Resetting File Permissions

The base things to watch out for are the files & directories that must be writeable:

- file: magento/var/.htaccess
- directory: magento/app/etc
- directory: magento/var
- all the directories under: magento/media 

chmod o+w var var/.htaccess app/etc
chmod -R o+w media

Answer 4

I had this same problem.

The directory for my Magento website on my Ubuntu server is: /var/www/magento

When running Magento initial installation I selected "No" for Use Web Server Rewrites. This setting is under Admin Panel - System - General - Web.

In .htaccess of root magento folder after finishing the initial installation it had: RewriteBase /magento/ As noted before my folder was /var/www/magento/

I changed Web Server Rewrites to Yes. In .htaccess I changed: RewriteBase /

Works fine now.