.htaccess RewriteRule returning 404 unexpectedly

Question

Rewriting is working using this htaccess file, but for some reason this new rule I created doesn't seem to be working. Here is the new rule:

RewriteRule ^(.*)/(webapps|gamedev|digitalart)$ $1/index.php [NC,PT,L]

Here is my entire set of rewrite rules:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^(.*)/(webapps|gamedev|digitalart)$ $1/index.php [NC,PT,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.php [L]

The public URL that this .htaccess is contained in is here:

https://dustinhendricks.com/test

The url I am testing is here:

https://dustinhendricks.com/test/gamedev

I expect the above URL to navigate (without changing the URL in browser) to here:

https://dustinhendricks.com/test/index.php

Instead it is returning a 404 error. Any ideas as to why this rewrite isn't working as expected? Tested it here, but seems to rewrite fine in this site htaccess tester

Answer 1

Have your .htaccess this way:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L,NE]

# add .php if there is a matching .php file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ $1.php [L]

# rewrite these paths to index.php
RewriteRule ^(webapps|gamedev|digitalart)/?$ index.php [NC,L]

Note that your .htaccess is already inside test/ subdirectory, hence matched pattern in RewriteRule will be relative to test/ subdirectory.