I don't see why this is a Vanilla issue, if you don't have the permissions setup be able to access a .php file on your site that has nothing to do with Vanilla?
do you have server error logs? you might see something like error_log in the www folder.
I'm interested to know what your .htaccess looks like and where you are putting it (the structure of the folders and all .htacess/server rules). Because maybe as you have folder within folders, the internal redirect (which are not physically represented in the public url) may be misdirected.
One way you can check this is to change (as a rough example)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php\?p=$1 [QSA,L]
to
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php\?p=$1 [R=302,QSA,L]
R=302 changing the redirect to a temporary redirect, that would make it clear where it is actually going.
I could be wrong but my guess is vanilla is not being reached, unless I misunderstood something.
Answers
I don't see why this is a Vanilla issue, if you don't have the permissions setup be able to access a .php file on your site that has nothing to do with Vanilla?
do you have server error logs? you might see something like
error_login the www folder.I'm interested to know what your .htaccess looks like and where you are putting it (the structure of the folders and all .htacess/server rules). Because maybe as you have folder within folders, the internal redirect (which are not physically represented in the public url) may be misdirected.
One way you can check this is to change (as a rough example)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php\?p=$1 [QSA,L]to
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php\?p=$1 [R=302,QSA,L]R=302changing the redirect to a temporary redirect, that would make it clear where it is actually going.I could be wrong but my guess is vanilla is not being reached, unless I misunderstood something.
Under what guise does it work?
grep is your friend.