Forbidden 403 error, permission to access, unable to read htaccess

Question

Recently clean-installed (with exception of themes and content/upload folders) an old wordpress to the latest Wordpress 4.2.2.

I continue to get this error below whenever I load files such as style.css in the web browser manually.

I've tried:

• changing this file's permission to 644, 755, and 777
• changing .c to .so in the .htaccess
• changing htaccess permission from 644 to 755 to even 777.
• adding mod_sec clause to htaccess

None of the above works for me. This error still occurs? I'm running PHP 5.4.43 and Wordpress 4.2.2.

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /blog/wp-content/themes/wp-knowledge-base/style.css on this server.
Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe

Apache/2.4.12 (Unix) OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_bwlimited/1.4 Server at subdomain.domain.com Port 80

Answer 1

Your .htaccess is not readable (like the error noticed).

So make your .htaccess readable using permission 644. Source

Now check again, perhaps now your stylesheet will be loaded?

If not, check if the stylesheet file is readable.

May this not be the cause, check the owner of the files.

Answer 2

1. What's in your Apache logs? Maybe more info about the error.
2. Set a 755 permission on the the public_html directory
3. Who's your hosting provider? The issue might be permissions that you, as a user, cannot change yourself (contact hosting support).

Answer 3

You can give permissions as follow to allow permission particular folders and sub folders recursively.

 chmod -R 755 /blog