Why is this .htaccess not silently redirecting?

Question

Can anyone tell me why the following visibly changes the URL in the browser, rather than redirecting silently? The redirect works, but visibly.

Example URL: http://domain.com/_test/sportswire/uk/football/huddersfield

...visibily redirects with query string arguments showing.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /_test/sportswire

#favour naked domain over www
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%1/$1 [R=301,NE,L]

#disallow trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]

###THIS RULE### channel pages - territory/sport/channel/[res type?]
RewriteRule ^(\w+)\/(\w+)\/(\w+)(?:\/(\w+))?$ channel.php?territory=$1&sport=$2&team=$3&res_type=$4 [L,NC,R=301]

#channel pages - with item (if from external referrer) - territory/sport/channel/res_type/"item"/item_id/pretty
RewriteRule ^(\w+)\/(\w+)\/(\w+)\/(\w+)\/story\/\w{11}\/[^\/]+$ channel.php?territory=$1&sport=$2&team=$3&res_type=$4&item=$5 [L,NC,R=301]

What I've tried/read:

Remove the R flag (no joy; and I have other .htaccess files with R flags that redirect silently)
Add/remove a rewrite base (done; also tried an absolute one)
Don't use absolute URLs (I'm not)

I'm fairly convinced there's nothing on planet earth quite as perplexing as mod-rewrite.

To the downvoter/closer: 1) the question shows a research effort; 2) the question makes clear what the desired behaviour is - both in the question title and its opening paragraph. — Mitya, Jun 26 '16 at 12:28
What exactly happens when you type **/_test/sportswire/uk/football/huddersfield** in your browser? Does the engine externally redirect you to the orignal path ? — Amit Verma, Jun 26 '16 at 12:40
It visibly redirects to the query string version, i.e. it's not a silent redirect, so it goes to channel.php?team=... etc. — Mitya, Jun 26 '16 at 12:50
Never test with [`R=301`](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9204355/1741542)! — Olaf Dietsche, Jun 26 '16 at 13:38

BeetleJuice · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-26T13:08:55.247

1

Try removing the [R] flag altogether, so that the server won't notify the browser of the change.

htaccess changes take effect immediately, so you don't need to restart the server. However, since you previously tried R=301, your browser may remember to go straight to the URL with the query string and never even ask the server for the URL you're trying to redirect. To see the effect of the change I recommended, start a new browser instance in incognito or private browsing mode and test the new rule.

Side note: why are you escaping all the / in your paths? I don't think you need to.

edited Jun 26 '16 at 13:08

answered Jun 26 '16 at 12:41

BeetleJuice

39,516
19
105
165

Thanks, I will give this a go. – Mitya Jun 26 '16 at 12:51

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '16 at 12:42

1

[R] flag should not be there. Try restarting Apache if that is possible, I've noticed that it helps sometimes. Try another browser or different URL, they can cache redirects.

answered Jun 26 '16 at 12:42

exabyssus

451
2
9

Thanks, I will give this a go. – Mitya Jun 26 '16 at 12:51

Why is this .htaccess not silently redirecting?

2 Answers2