Multisite / WordPress Network errors, details, screenshots

Note for WordPress.org admins: I mistakenly posted this in the wrong forum; it belongs in this forum. I’m not trying to SPAM the forums, so you can delete the other post. Thanks!

Hey all! I’m just about out of options here. I’ll explain what I’ve done with this domain, where I’m trying to have 4 subdomains. This may be long, but I don’t wanna leave any stones unturned.

The Basics

• On a BlueHost VPS; they say they don’t give multisite support, so I’m on my own
• WordPress 4.0; all plugins up-to-date.
• My primary domain is installed in the /public_html/ root, but I’m not even working with my primary domain — it’s old & obsolete; each subsequent domain has its own add-on domain in it’s own folder (e.g., /public_html/nationalcdp/, which is the WordPress installation this thread deals with.
• One of the primary domains I purchased through BlueHost is nationalcdp.org; so the path to that is /public_html/nationalcdp/, which is a WordPress domain like all of my domains.
• It’s running on the Genesis framework & Genesis child theme and was functioning perfectly. I have a copy of the DB (and files that were altered) prior to attempting to Multisite it
• nationalcdp.org is fully SSL’d and I use WordPress HTTPS.
• Prior to launching the multisite effort, I had already made a subdomain, cases.nationalcdp.org, purchased an SSL certificate for that, installed it, and it was working fine; I just had to log into it separately, and since have decided I wanted 3 more subdomains, but haven’t purchased an SSL certificate for the other 3 subdomains at this point, although I have like $50 in my namecheap.com account so I can do so at any time

What I’ve Done:
So I started multisite using all of the codex / WordPress instructions. I changed files as such:

(near the top of wp-config)

/* Multisite */
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );
define('MULTISITE', true);
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true);
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'nationalcdp.org');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define( 'SUNRISE', 'on' );

(replacing the bottom of htaccess and using it solely as my htaccess)

# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^wp-admin$ wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
# END WordPress

1. I then created 3 additional subdomains: directory.nationalcdp.org, forums.nationalcdp.org, and discuss.nationalcdp.org. I also added cases.nationalcdp.org, which it its own separate WordPress installation and already has an SSL certificate
2. BlueHost automatically updates your DNS records when creating a subdomain, so I also updated CloudFlare’s DNS to reflect these changes.
3. I added a wildcard subdomain (*) and pointed it to /public_html/nationalcdp/, and did the same with CloudFlare. I also tried pointing this to the /public_html/ but realized that’s not correct, since the WordPress installation is in /public_html/nationalcdp/. It created a /nationalcdp/wildcard/ folder. I left it there, then deleted the folder it created. So there are folders /nationalcdp/directory/, /nationalcdp/discuss/, /nationalcdp/forums/, and /nationalcdp/cases/.
4. I installed the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin, although I don’t have a clear concept of what “mapping” is other than simply redirecting. I didn’t upload this via the WordPress interface; I downloaded it and placed domain-mapping.php in my /wp-content/mu-plugins/ folder, and placed sunrise.php in /wp-content/.
5. I have W3 Total Cache installed.

The Problems:

• I can log into my WordPress admin. There is no Tools >> NetWork Admin when I log in as myself (screenshot). All I see is this (screenshot).
• I see nothing saying I’m a Super Admin. The only way I can tell I’m a Super Admin is by going to My Sites >> Network Admin >> Users, and there, I can see I’m a Super Admin. (Screenshot)
• I do see my subdomain sites — but still, not Tools >> NetWork Admin. (screenshot)
• When I click on Dashboard in any of my subdomains, I receive a 404 Page Not Found error. Perhaps this is because I don’t have SSL installed on the others (yet). But I do have SSL installed on cases.natonalcdp.org, and I still receive a 404: (Screenshot)
• The front side of the domain, cases.nationalcdp.org doesn’t work anymore.
• My FTP utility looks like this: (Screenshot), with the subdomains creating folders in the /nationalcdp/ folder. When opening a folder, nothing is in there other than an empty /cgi-bin/ folder (Screenshot).

So if this is a matter of just purchasing 3 more SSL certs and installing them on the BlueHost VPS, that’s no problem; I could have all 3 domains SSL’d in 10 minutes. But I don’t want to purchase the certificates until I know this is going to work.

Or is it a matter of deleting those folders, or the /cgi-bin/ within ’em?

Other than that, I really don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I’ve logged out, rebooted, refreshed, tried different browsers, etc.; nothing seems to work.

I cannot get Tools >> Network Admin to show, cannot get any Super User option to show in the top WordPress toolbar, and cannot get to any of the dashboards of any subdomain.

I’ve pretty much followed everything to a tee. It could be a WordPress HTTPS or W3 Total Cache issue, or simply that I need to purchase SSL certificates. But I think it might have something to be done w/ the way I set up the subdomains.

Any guidance in helping me with this issue would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/