Subsites in Multisite installation throwing 404 error on wp-admin in IIS 7

Question

Running into an issue where sub sites of a multisite (fresh installation of 3.9 and no plugins or themes) are throwing 404 error when trying to access the wp-admin section of the sub site. It is running on IIS7.

• http://www.mysite.com/subsite/wp-admin -> Throws 404
• http://www.mysite.com/subsite2/wp-admin -> Throws 404
• http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin -> Works for the main site

When we login through http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin and navigate to the sub site then try to log out it also throws a 404.

Was using the default web.config, for the re-write rules. But all the sub sites were throwing 404 errors on the css/js files. So, I altered the re-write rules a bit, which you can see below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 1" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^index\.php$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 2" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Redirect" url="{R:1}wp-admin/" redirectType="Permanent" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 3" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny">
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" ignoreCase="false" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 4" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*)" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url=“{R:2}” />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 5” stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-comments-post.*)” ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url=“{R:2}” />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 6” stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:2}" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 7” stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="." ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Am I missing any other re-write rules or need to change? So the subsites do not throw 404 errors when navigating to the /wp-admin page.

Answer 1

Figured out the issue. It was with the generated "Wordpress Rule 6". It was giving 2 identical regex expressions. Removed the extra regex expression. Also had to remove "Wordpress Rule 5". Renumber the rules and now everything works fine.

Here's the updated web.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 1" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^index\.php$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 2" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Redirect" url="{R:1}wp-admin/" redirectType="Permanent" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 3" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny">
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" ignoreCase="false" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="None" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 4" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*)" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:2}" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 5" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:2}" />
                </rule>
                <rule name="WordPress Rule 6" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="." ignoreCase="false" />
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>