Default CodeIgniter controller not working or is it my htaccess?

I'm using CodeIgniter 3.1.13 and configured my htaccess file to remove "index.php" but when I try to go to a webpage it doesn't work unless I put the default controller in the URL. Any advice?

Going to the following URLs work fine...

But the following URL does not work...

https://www.example.com/page/test

How do I get this URL to work?

Here's my htaccess file...

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]

#force https
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} example\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [R,L]
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>

# Without mod_rewrite, route 404's to the front controller
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php

</IfModule>

I changed my config.php to this...

$config['base_url'] = 'https://www.example.com/';
$config['index_page'] = '';

Here's my Welcome.php controller...

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Welcome extends CI_Controller {

function __construct()
{   
    parent::__construct();
}

function index()
{
    $this->load->view('homepage', $data);
}

function page($pageName)
{
    $data['content'] = $this->load->view($pageName, '', TRUE);
    $this->load->view('template_page', $data);
}

}

Solution

$route['default_controller'] only specifies which controller gets executed when the root directory of the website is requested. That is: when no controller/method subdirectory/string is given. In your example that would be when www.example.com or www.example.com/index.php are requested.

The default controller does not get executed when the requested url subdirectory/string starts with one of its methods.

For the www.example.com/page/test url to work, you need to either have a Page controller with a test method in it:

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Page extends CI_Controller {

    function __construct()
    {   
        parent::__construct();
    }

    function test()
    {
        $this->load->view('test');
    }

}

Or add the following to config/routes.php to have the www.example.com/page/* urls be handled by the Welcome controller's page method:

$route['page/(:any)'] = 'welcome/page/$1';