Why would index.php only work some of the time?

Question

I just moved a develoment site onto a test production server and I'm testing some things out.

When you go to the root URL (ie rooturl.com), the browser is correctly rendering rooturl.com/index.php without showing the index.php in the address bar.

However, I also have a directory at rooturl.com/admin that also has an index file of index.php, but when I go to rooturl.com/admin I'm getting a 404 not found error. But if I type out rooturl.com/admin/index.php, it loads the page.

Is there a common reason for this?

The last piece of relevant information is that since my client won't switch their domain name to the new host until they are ready with migrating email, etc., I'm currently not able to view the site on the registered URL, I can only access it using the IP address directly which I got from the host.

My gut feeling is that the direct IP address is screwing with how it would normally work, but it's just a guess and I have no idea why that would be the case.

Answer 1

Sounds like it could be an .htaccess rewriting issue. Be sure to check any .htaccess file (hidden, by default) in those directories for any screwy rewrite-rules.

If you're running a MVC project, then the url /admin may be confused for a call to a controller rather than a directory.

Answer 2

My first shoot is that you have .htaccess file and it is redirecting everythind to your root index.php file.