Sonic.net

Peace. We contacted Sonic's tech support. TS suggested we go to this form for assistance. TS could not enter with PW yet he could enter another .htaccess directory with same password.
We have several directories that are .htaccess and all work except one: http://www.wrmosb.org/zendo/odnezr.html.
The .htaccess file in /zendo/ reads:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Entry into the Cloister"
AuthUserFile /home/users/r/rmdosb/public_html/.passwd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null

require valid-user

All other .htaccess directories have the same general format.
We reloaded the .htaccess file which had been working for at lest 5 years. We found out just this evening that none of us could gain access. We experimented by uploading a new .passwrd file with only one password - same result.
What other information would you like?
Please advise - Thanks...

I think this may be a matter of a missing password file. From a quick peek at /home/users/r/rmdosb/public_html/ I don't see a file named ".passwd"

Thanks, John: the .passwd file is in /home/users/r/rmdosb/public_html/wrmosb.org/ and has been since the beginning and has worked just fine. Based upon your suggestion, we changed the ".htaccess" file in /zendo/ to read "/home/users/r/rmdosb/public.html/wrmosb.org/.passwd" and still no effect. We tried even "/home/users/r/rmdosb/wrmosb.org/.passwd (as the path reads in FileZilla) and still no effect.
The current ".htaccess" reads "/home/users/r/rmdosb/public.html/wrmosb.org/.passwd"
Baffling! What to do!? Please advise. Thanks.

I just took a look at the .htaccess file and again it was referencing a file that doesn't exist (there was a period where an underscore belonged). I took the liberty of setting it to the following for you:
This should work now.

Peace John:
Hummm ... I am feeling very ignorant beside being befuddled .... Thank you for your patience w/ my dilemma.
The current (copy/pasted) ".htaccess" file in /zendo/ reads:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Entry into the Cloister"
AuthUserFile /home/WWW_pages/rmdosb/public_html/wrmosb.org/.passwd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null

require valid-user

In /wrmosb.org/ is ".passwd"

We have uploaded to PW/ID
ID test
PW 1234
ID test2
PW 1234

We use https://www.quentinsagerconsulting.com/ ... passwd.php to generate PW.

We tried both "test" and "test2" w/ PW "1234" and got the same result: 404.
Thanks in advance for any help you may give! Rob

/

Odd, I'm pretty sure that's not how I left it. The .htaccess file in the "zendo" subdirectory for wrmosb.org should contain the following:
Note the lack of "public_html" in the AuthUserFile. This will cause our web server to use the file named ".passwd" that is in the same directory as wrmosb.org's main webpage to be consulted for authentication purposes. Also I would expect a 401 error (authentication required) instead of 404 (file not found). If the .htaccess file had a serious syntax error you could expect a 500 error.

Peace: THANK YOU!!! We copy/pasted your ".htaccess" and uploaded to /wrmosb.org/ Done. Access obtained!
Ought we change our other ".htaccess" directories have been using for the past 5 to 7 years
/home/WWW_pages/rmdosb/public_html/.passwd
to
/home/WWW_pages/rmdosb/wrmosb.org/.passwd ?
I am assuming YES in that over the years servers have upgraded and what worked years before do not do so now.
Thank you once again for your most diligent and patient Customer Service. This is WHY, in part, I'm always recommending Sonic.net in terms of Customer Service (and on the side, please keep Squirrel Mail for those of us who travel the globe and SM always works just fine - Thanks.)
Peace and Joy! Rob