/network/settings.php gives 404 error

@david – All the menu options that use /wp-admin/network/settings.php are broken. Network Setup uses /wp-admin/network/setup.php, so it works, as does everything else in the menu — just anything that uses settings.php doesn’t.

And I’ve reinstalled WordPress from a fresh zip file. I’ve made sure .htaccess is the default. I’ve checked permissions. I’ve used a security plugin to verify the file against the current repository.

I’m completely, utterly stumped. I have no idea what it could be.

@david

My network is already set up — I already have 7 functioning sites in it. It worked fine for a couple of years and then just stopped one day, and I don’t know when since it’s not something I access that often. (And yes, I’ve already tried disabling — and even removing — all plugins, and that didn’t fix it either)

Yes, Network Setup is Visible and /wp-admin/network/setup.php works. It shows me the code for wp-config.php and .htaccess. But I’ve double and triple checked, and the code it gives is already in my wp-config and htaccess.

That said, looking more closely at wp-config, there are a couple of things that look like they might be where the problem is, and I just don’t know enough to know… these are after the “that’s all, stop editing” message:

/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
    define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__) . '/');

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');

Is that all correct?

You’re going to maindomain.com/wp-admin/network/settings.php right?

Yes.

What version was your site originally on?

3.3.1

When did this start happening?

About a year ago. I posted on here, got no resolution. I haven’t really needed to create a new site, so I’ve just lived without it. I can’t tell you exactly when it started, or what might have caused it, because I really only access that area when creating a new site. I just know that it stopped some time between setting up 7 working sites and about a year ago.

Have you checked your server logs to see if there’s an error?

No, I hadn’t. You’re a genius. Here’s what’s there:

[Wed Apr 09 14:53:48 2014] [alert] [client 72.182.2.180] /home/nfnnet/public_html/wp-content/themes/aggregator/scripts/.htaccess: Invalid command 'php_value', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration, referer: http://nfn8.net/wp-admin/network/settings.php
[Wed Apr 09 14:53:47 2014] [error] [client 72.182.2.180] client denied by server configuration: /home/nfnnet/public_html/wp-admin/network/settings.php

Which led me to look at that file, which contains this:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .js
php_value auto_prepend_file gzip-js.php
php_flag zlib.output_compression On

So, I changed the theme on the main site (who would’ve thought?)… but that still didn’t fix it. I am now, however, only getting the one error in the error log:

[Wed Apr 09 15:04:22 2014] [error] [client 72.182.2.180] client denied
by server configuration:
/home/nfnnet/public_html/wp-admin/network/settings.php,
referer: http://nfn8.net/wp-admin/network/

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

# uploaded files
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$2 [L]

# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
# RewriteRule  ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $2 [L]
# RewriteRule  ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]