Well, it's beyond me right now.

( All of this is basically in a sandbox version just trying to figure it out. Yes, I know i'm not following the rules by directly editing default.config and so on. )

I did a fresh install. The .htaccess is there, it is working and accessed. Permissions are good. I can crash everything with jibber jabber in the htaccess file. So it's reading.

New install gets the: Error: .htaccess is Missing or Disabled, or the users Folder is in an Insecure Location. -- Which is all untrue per jibber jabber.

Line 134 of the start.php comment out //require FORUM_LIB.'error_htaccess.php'; and it obviously removes the error message, and will let it run.

Make a post. Click the post. Non seo url.

Take out // on 134, and go back to error message as expected.

===

config.default.php
@define ('FORUM_USERS', 'users');
to
@define ('FORUM_USERS', '/users');

- Runs but with non seo url (as expected).

===

start.php 132

define ('HTACCESS', (bool) @$_SERVER['HTTP_HTACCESS']);
to
//define ('HTACCESS', (bool) @$_SERVER['HTTP_HTACCESS']);

- Loads index.php fine. When clicking a post calling thread.php, it then loads SEO friendly URL, but page will not load. (blank white page forever spinning load)

===

3am here I give up and getting a couple hours of sleep.