Support

Hello Felix,

Restoring to a subdirectory of another Joomla! site is not recommended. There's nothing wrong with Akeeba Backup, it can do it, but if you're using a .htaccess then you're putting unnecessary obstacles in your path. Let me explain this.

Apache –your web server– follows a cascading rule for .htaccess files. It will first look for a .htaccess file on the master web root, then for a .htaccess files on each and every directory up to the one which is being accessed. In practical terms, this means that your main site's .htaccess file is loaded first, then the .htaccess in your subdirectory is loaded second. The combination of these two files is what will be effective on the new site inside the subdirectory. Obviously, this means that in the site in the subdirectory you might get a complete and utter mess.

There is no generic workaround in this case. It all depends on what redirections/rewrites you are performing on the main site's .htaccess file. Your best bet is using subdomains instead of subdirectories, since subdomains can be set up to have their root directory outside of your main Joomla! site, therefore the .htaccess cascading doesn't cause them to load a .htaccess file you do not want.

Hello Felix,

I am wondering, are you by any chance using a temporary URL, e.g. http://www.example.com/~username instead of a proper domain name to access your site? In this case, you won't be able to get SEF URLs working on that configuration. It's an Apache limitation and, trust me, I've tried very hard and I have even asked professional hosting engineers (Red Hat Certified Engineers nonetheless!) to no avail.

In any other case, it's most likely a case of configuring .htaccess (hint: the RewriteBase is probably what you need) and/or the $live_site parameter in your configuration.php. All of that is detailed in our troubleshooter guide over here: https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/troubleshooter/prbasicts.html

Most likely you typed in something wrong. It should be RewriteBase / and NOT Rewrite /. In the latter case, you are causing 404 errors all over the place. Other than that, unless when you are using temporary (http://www.example.com/~user) URLs or have your site in a subdirectory, RewriteBase / will always work. If you are using a temporary URL, good luck with that, you can't have SEF URLs. If you are using a subdirectory, you need to supply the subdirectory name in the directive, e.g. RewriteBase /joomla for a site accessible with a URL like http://www.example.com/joomla.