"Drupal is not defined" Javascript error and drupal.js gives "Page not found" error

Question

I'm installing Drupal like I've always done and I start to see this error in the console. I know Drupal object is defined in drupal.js, so I open up the source file and click on /misc/drupal.js and it says "page not found." Huh. That's weird because I can see that file is in my system, just where it should be. But somehow Drupal cannot find it. I'm thinking, "could this be a mod_rewrite error? But my Drupal install is fresh and I didn't touch .htaccess file at all."

After I ignore all the errors and proceed with the installation, they don't go away away. Even after I drop the db to start over, they keep coming back. They only disappear after I reinstall the XAMPP server. But again they come back after enabling a couple of ordinary modules -- none of which had caused problems for me before.

I'm leaning towards this being caused by one of the modules, but I don't know which one and how can a module irreparably break Drupal that only a sever reinstall can fix it?

On a side note, the site is defined on a virtual host and this is the relevant part in my httpd-vhosts.conf file

  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteOptions Inherit
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/drupal.*
  RewriteRule ^(/.*)?$ /drupal$1

And this is because the drupal install is located in a folder called drupal. Seeing that now I'm beginning to think if this causes Apache to choke, and confuse drupal.js with drupal directory?

EDIT: it's not the vhosts file. I changed the directory to "dru." Made no difference.

Answer 1

They only disappear after I reinstall the XAMPP server. But again they come back after enabling a couple of ordinary modules

I suspect the problem is something you're doing between reinstalling the XAMPP server and enabling modules.

it's not the vhosts file. I changed the directory to "dru." Made no difference.

dru.* still matches drupal.js. Try changing the directory to "asdf". I suspect that will fix it.

If not, you should go through your install process one step at a time to identify the specific problem.

After I ignore all the errors and proceed with the installation

Don't do that.