6. Troubleshooting

In case you get error messages from Apache, after you enable the SEO settings (like 404 file not found or 500 internal server error), then you have to:

• Visit the website with Joomla's technical requirements to make sure that you meet at least the minimum of these.
• Double-check that you renamed the file "htaccess.txt" to ".htaccess" and that you uploaded it to Joomla's root directory.
• Ask your web hosting provider if he does have Apache's extension mod_rewrite installed on the server and ofcourse that they allow you to use .htaccess files.
• Modify the .htaccess file, as I have indicated above, in case you have installed Joomla in a subfolder of your web-space, or if your web host told you to change something specific.

7. Last Resort

If none of the above help or the hosting provider doesn't allow the use of mod_rewrite in Apache, you can:

• Enable only the first and the third SEO setting (Chapter 5). Click on "No" for the setting "Use Apache mod_rewrite" and on the upper right on "Apply". Then rename the ".htaccess" file back to "htaccess.txt", since you don't need it anymore. In this way you're going to have at least friendlier URLs than before.
• Post your issue on the Joomla Forum with all details about the server environment on which Joomla is installed (PHP, MySQL and Apache versions etc.).