Issue with Rank Math, WPML and .htaccess rewrite on our website - Support

Resolved Roberto Negro
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hi,
we’ve installed Rank Math on our website, which is a bilingual WordPress site using WPML for Italian and English.

We’re experiencing a critical issue:
whenever we make changes to Rank Math settings (such as sitemap settings or general SEO options), the site returns a 500 error. After some investigation, we discovered that Rank Math modifies the .htaccess file, adding a /it rewrite rule, which then breaks the entire site.

It seems there is a conflict between Rank Math and WPML in how they handle language-based URLs and default language settings.

We would appreciate your support in helping us configure Rank Math properly for a multilingual setup with WPML, and avoid these unwanted and critical .htaccess rewrites.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Nicole

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

RankBot
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with Rank Math and WPML. It sounds like a critical situation with the 500 error and the .htaccess modifications.

To address this, we recommend checking for any plugin conflicts that might be causing this issue. You can use the Health Check plugin to help identify if there are any conflicts with other plugins.

Additionally, ensure that your .htaccess file is correctly configured and does not contain any unintended rules that could interfere with Rank Math or WPML. If you need to revert any changes made to the .htaccess file, you can restore it from a backup if available.

If the problem persists, please reply to this ticket with your site URL so that a human agent from the Rank Math Support team can assist you further in configuring Rank Math properly for your multilingual setup with WPML.

Thank you for raising this concern, and we look forward to helping you resolve it!

Roberto Negro
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Good morning, we have already contacted both WPML support and our hosting provider, and they informed us that the Rank Math plugin is overwriting the .htaccess file. This makes it unusable because every time I try to perform any action, it gets overwritten. Can you help us?

Reinelle
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Hello,

In this case, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.

Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/

We really look forward to helping you.

Roberto Negro
4 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hello,

I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?

Thank you.

Roberto Negro
4 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Good morning, is there any update on this issue?

Ike
4 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

Although Rank Math has the option to edit the .htaccess file, it does not add any rewrite/content there by default.

Even with Rank Math disabled, the 500 errors persist on your site.

We can, however, see that the home URL is different from the site URL.

We recommend you follow this guide to identify any plugin/theme causing the issue: https://rankmath.com/kb/check-plugin-conflicts/

Don’t hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.

RankBot
3 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.

If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.

Thank you.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The ticket ‘Issue with Rank Math, WPML and .htaccess rewrite on our website’ is closed to new replies.