Can't access index.php in Drupal even after .htaccess modification.

Question

I can't access my index.php file within a subdirectory of my Drupal installation. I can access other subdirectories index files and I can also access the subdirectory and see its contents when I remove the index.php file. I've made changes to my .htaccess file a while back which should allow any index.html, index.php, or index.htm file to be accessed. Here is my .htaccess file, any help is greatly appreciated:

#
# Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
#

# Protect files and directories from prying eyes.

  Order allow,deny


# Don't show directory listings for URLs which map to a directory.
Options -Indexes

# Follow symbolic links in this directory.
Options +FollowSymLinks

# Make Drupal handle any 404 errors.
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php

#Handle 401 errors manually
ErrorDocument 401 /401.html

# Force simple error message for requests for non-existent favicon.ico.

  # There is no end quote below, for compatibility with Apache 1.3.
  ErrorDocument 404 "The requested file favicon.ico was not found."


# Set the default handler.
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm
Options +Indexes

# Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
# but the following cannot be changed at runtime.

# PHP 4, Apache 1.

  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0


# PHP 4, Apache 2.

  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0


# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.

  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0


# Requires mod_expires to be enabled.

  # Enable expirations.
  ExpiresActive On

  # Cache all files for 2 weeks after access (A).
  ExpiresDefault A1209600

  # Do not cache dynamically generated pages.
  ExpiresByType text/html A1


# Various rewrite rules.

  RewriteEngine on

  # If your site can be accessed both with and without the 'www.' prefix, you
  # can use one of the following settings to redirect users to your preferred
  # URL, either WITH or WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix. Choose ONLY one option:
  #
  # To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix,
  # (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...)
  # adapt and uncomment the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  #
  # To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
  # (http://www.example.com/... will be redirected to http://example.com/...)
  # uncomment and adapt the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

  # Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory or in a
  # VirtualDocumentRoot and the rewrite rules are not working properly.
  # For example if your site is at http://example.com/drupal uncomment and
  # modify the following line:
  # RewriteBase /drupal
  #
  # If your site is running in a VirtualDocumentRoot at http://example.com/,
  # uncomment the following line:
  # RewriteBase /

  # Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]



# $Id: .htaccess,v 1.90.2.3 2008/12/10 20:04:08 goba Exp $

Answer 1

Drupal 6 also puts a very restrictive .htaccess file in the system-created "files" directory. I've just done a bit of testing, and I can open .html files in the "files" directory (plus images & audio & everything else you generally get in there) but not .php files. This goes for all the subfolders under "files" as well.

Behaviour on my system doesn't quite match what you've described, but I'd wager that's the issue.