WordPress Permalinks still not working despite all necessary settings

Question

I apologize for the seemingly duplicate issue posting but I can't seem to find someone who has come across my specific issue and resolved it. This post got close but I did everything they did.

here's where I'm at:

• migrated a wp site to an AWS server running ubuntu 18
• rewrite mod is enabled
• site is in /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site
• site dir is owned by www-data
• site's virtual hosts file has the necessary "Directory" section with "AllowOverride All" set
• site's .htaccess file has the rewrite rules set by the permalinks settings in the UI
• apache2 config also has the "AllowOverride All" set for a "Directory" section pointed at /home/ubuntu/sites

What am I missing?

.htaccess

contents after setting the permalinks to date and time (empty otherwise)

 BEGIN WordPress
# The directives (lines) between "BEGIN WordPress" and "END WordPress" are
# dynamically generated, and should only be modified via WordPress filters.
# Any changes to the directives between these markers will be overwritten.
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
        ExpiresActive On
        ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 year"
        ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
        ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
        ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
        ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
        ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
        ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"
        ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 5 minutes"
        ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
        ExpiresDefault "access plus 6 hours"
</IfModule>
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
Header set X-Endurance-Cache-Level "2"
</ifModule>
Options -Indexes

                                <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
                                        RewriteEngine On
                                        RewriteBase /
                                        RewriteRule ^/wp-content/endurance-page-cache/ - [L]
                                        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !POST
                                        RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !.*=.*
                                        RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !(wordpress_test_cookie|comment_author|wp\-postpass|wordpress_logg$
                                        RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/endurance-page-cache/$1/_index.html -f
                                        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /wp-content/endurance-page-cache/$1/_index.html [L]
                                </IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

apache2.conf

...
<Directory /home/ubuntu/sites/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>
...

vhost for site

...
DocumentRoot /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site.com
...
<Directory /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site.com>
     Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
     AllowOverride All
     Require all granted
</Directory>
...

Answer 1

Since the domain/site has an ssl, the vhosts file for the ssl is separate and also needs to be updated. Not just the normal port 80 entry.

vhost (:80)

my-wp-site.com.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
...
DocumentRoot /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site.com
...
<Directory /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site.com>
     Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
     AllowOverride All
     Require all granted
</Directory>
...
</VirtualHost>

vhost (:443)

my-wp-site.com-le-ssl.conf

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ...
    ServerName my-wp-site.com
    ServerAlias my-wp-site.com
    DocumentRoot /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site.com
    <Directory /home/ubuntu/sites/my-wp-site.com>
        Options None FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
    ...
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>