Wordpress multisite fails to create a new site in the network

Question

I've set up WP multisite, done all required modifications in both wp-config and .htaccess files. Now when I try to create a new site in the network I get an e-mail notification in my admin account email inbox however Wordpress does not copy any files to new location. The path is empty (except for index.html automatically created by DA). Additionally, when I try to access the back end I get an Error 500 instead of 404.

The website is old enough to have only the subdomain option available. The subdomain has been created in DirectAdmin. It has the same access privileges (755) as other directories in my current WP installation. I can upload files there via FTP and everything works fine. Also when I enter the subdomain directory (www.domain.com/subdomain ) in my browser I get redirected to the subdomain (subdomain.domain.com) which is correct behavior.

So everything seems to work perfectly in theory but practice shows the opposite. Is it possible that I've damaged some rewrite instructions in .htaccess file? Or may it be a different cause?

I'd love to receive a bit of help. The WP Codex doesn't provide any answers. Neither does DA documentation. There are some threads over the Internet but they are mostly about establishing a network, not much more.

Answer 1

I've hit this problem too, where I cannot add any more sites to the WP install, which has at one time been an MU, had multi-site plugins, and other jiggery pokery to make it work. The site has been moved from server to server and although it now continues to run the existing sites (all using different domain names pointing to the same IP as the root site), I can't add any new sites to it without manually creating the database tables. It's not an .htaccess problem, I believe, but rather a consequence of using a very old baseline (vintage 2004).

The solution is either to create the tables for the new site ID manually, or run a new instance of WP. The latter feels less dirty as a solution.

Hope that helps.