Permalink HELL! please help

Hi guys, I’m new to wordpress and have recently installed it on shared hosting. I want to change my permalinks to month/title format. I tried to upload a .htaccess file to allow permalinks (method detailed bellow). When trying to access my site now I get an internal server error and no area of the site works (i cant even access my dashboard) If I remove the .htaccess file, the site should work but of course permalinks will deliver a 404 error.

When changing Permalinks under Settings on the dashboard, it became apparent that there was either no .htaccess file on my server or wordpress could not communicate with it if it did exist. WordPress suggested a code to use and displayed it on my dashboard I copied and pasted the code into a new .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

There was no other code existing or added in the .htaccess file. When this did not work I tried another method copied from a 3rd party support site:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Pretty much the same code right? still no success! my web host insists that .htaccess files are alterable, they also notify me that the server is running on a linux platform if this is any help ( Ive read somewhere that it needs to be a linux platform for .htaccess to work in this way) also worth noting that my web host will not allow uploading directly to the root directory. all root files should be uploaded in a subfolder called “public_html” this is where I uploaded word press and the .htaccess file, when a browser is pointed to my website, public_html is treated as the root directory. does this mean the “RewriteRule” should be altered to index.php/public_html?

Also worth noting that I uploaded my .htaccess file in ASCII mode as htaccess.txt and then changed the name. Is this a problem? Also I have changed the file permissions to 640.

I think I’ve given you all the information I can. If theres anything I’m missing please let me know!

Thanks in advance guys

Adam

http://www.airpunch.co.uk