Redirection issue in htaccess

Question

I have one issue with my htaccess redirection code.

Suppose I request this url

https://example.com/about-us/

Then its redirect to non-slash link that means they redirect to

https://example.com/about-us

but what happens in between

https://example.com/about-us/ this url redirect to
https://example.com/about-us.html then redirect to
https://example.com/about-us

I want to remove this middle step from redirection.

I attached my htaccess code for better understanding

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
# This checks to make sure the connection is not already HTTPS
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !Twitterbot [NC]
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com$ [NC] 
#RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !Twitterbot [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} "blog"
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} "blog"
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f


# remove the .html extension
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.*)\.html\ HTTP
RewriteRule (.*)\.html$ $1 [R=301]

# remove trailing slash if not a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$
RewriteRule (.*)/ $1 [R=301]


# forward request to html file, **but don't redirect (bot friendly)**
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule (.*) $1\.html [L]

</IfModule>

#Alternate default index page
DirectoryIndex index.html

## 404 Page
ErrorDocument 404 https://example.com/404

## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
#ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

# END WordPress

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Keep all your redirect rules at top:

Options -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

## remove www and turn on https in same rule
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\. [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !Twitterbot [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(?:www\.)?(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L,NE]

# remove the .html extension
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (\S+)\.html\ HTTP [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R=301,L,NE]

# remove trailing slash if not a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.+)/+$
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R=301,NE,L]

# forward request to html file, **but don't redirect (bot friendly)**
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule ^ %{REQUEST_URI}.html [L]

# remaining rules go below this

Make sure to use a new browser for your testing or completely clear your browser cache.

About Options -MultiViews: Option MultiViews (see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/content-negotiation.html) is used by Apache's content negotiation module that runs before mod_rewrite and makes Apache server match extensions of files. So if /file is the URL then Apache will serve /file.html.