I also thought this thinking if the index.php file is stored in the parent joomla directory then surely and the others are pointing back to it. Then surely the SEF URLS need to be setup there aswel.

However when i set this up it still didnt work. I renamed the htaccess.txt file and uncommented the rewriteBase / value for use in the parent directory. As well as switching on the radio buttons in the global config area of the administration area.

This still did not work, im very confused as to why simply entereing a path into a command value is so difficult.

Is there something else I am missing. I have found youtube video turorials (altho none on JMS slave sites) to resolve this kind of issue and its still not working.

I'm suprised there is not a tutorial video following this process through.

regaqrds Nick

The problem of the error 404 is probably due to the htaccess that change the URL before it reach joomla.
So if the update perform by the htaccess is not correct, you receive a wrong page in Joomla that will result by the 404.

I know that configure the SEF is not necessary easy and require sometime a little research to identify the correct parameter.

All I can give you as answer is the one that I have found with my own experience when I had to configure it for a customer.

I think that the problem that you encounter is due to the fact that the slave site is in a subdirectory and that the "rewriteBase" is not correct.

If you can test with a subdomain that is deployed in a specific directory (not a subdirectory of your master), I think this will be easier for you to setup the SEF as normally, the subdomain will be identified by apache as a root directory.

The htaccess and the way that it interpret the URL depends on the URL itself and if the value is incorrectly interpreted, you will reach a wrong page with 404 result.

Hi Edwin,

thank you for your quick response and I completely agree with your answer. However I've tried all the relevant paths i can think of. It seems a bit over kill to purchase an hour of support for something that should take about 30 seconds to a value.

However ignoring the value for the slave site reference, I also had the same problem getting it to work on the master. Which i followed a youtube tutorial for.

1. edit htaccess.txt file and amend to .htaccess
2. remove commented out command for rewriteBase
3. edit global configuration settings to create SEF URLS
4. wait for a moment and preview pages.

The .htaccess file should automatically resolve to the route and work but it does not.

I have now attached a screenshot showing the folder structure of the slave sites locations.

The master site is simply located in the route Joomla folder.

So from what you can see (and from what i entered as the rewriteBase valuefrom the start) is the value of the slave site location.

Which is : /multisites/qp_slave_46

So surely this means that the rewrite base value should read
RewriteBase /multisites/qp_slave_46

Or if shown as an absolute add the joomla folder reference at the beginning of the path, but neither work....

The directory structure that you show me with the gp_slave_46 is INCORRECT or your tool does not display the links.

You should have all the directories like in the master site.
Plenty of directories linked to the master.
I don't see them.

I only see the cache directory and the "tmp" directory is also missing.

So either this is your tool that does not display the things or your slave is not correctly created.

If the symbolic link is allowed and that you have deployed the slave site in the {site_dir} then you should have plenty of symbolic links that are not displayed in your screenshot.

You think that the SEF / error 404 just take 30 second but you can see by yourself this is not the case. Myself, I should test case by case and perhaps add a trace in joomla to see the value sent by the htaccess. I can tell you this will not be done in 30 seconds.

Hi Edwin,

First of all I would like to thank you for your assistance with this issue.

Secondly I believe I have some good news I was able to setup the master site SEF URL's by going into the multisites folder where the slave sites were installed and opening the "config_multisites.php" file.

At the top of this file I found this line of code:

define( 'MULTISITES_MASTER_ROOT_PATH', '/websites/My ISP/LinuxPackage22/or/ac/le/myurl.com/public_html/joomla');

So I extracted the url from here and entered the value into the master site and it now works. So in theory I should just need to continue to drill down to each slave site now.

Its strange that its reading the path so far back, however at least now I should be able to resolve this, thank you for your time.

Regards Nick

The path that you have in this line correspond to the path that you use when you manage the slave site definition from the master website.

Remember that normally, you should always manage the slave sites from the master.