If the WordPress was installed in the webroot then I’d expect WordPress to run when you visit https://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/ instead of showing an almost empty directory (nothing but the cgi-bin).
I’m thinking you have WordPress installed in a blog directory somewhere on that server and have managed to point the subdomain at it somehow but I can’t begin to understand how you did it.
I will say, with the URLs you provided and the ones I was able to discover, I would have expected WordPress to run from the root directory. And it probably should be running from the webroot to do multisite properly.
Anyway, here is where I suspect your WordPress is installed…
https://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/blog/
I think you might need to call your hosting provider for a bit of help here.
Hi @jnashhawkins – thanks for responding.
I’m not too sure how you saw the cgi-bin. I see the sample page up when i visit https://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/ (Screenshot: https://tinyurl.com/y8gpdb5f).
Wordpress definitely isn’t installed in a subfolder or at /blog (screenshot: https://tinyurl.com/y7gxwntz)
When i visit https://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/test-site/ that is when i start seeing issues (screenshot: https://tinyurl.com/y8ncfdca)
Yeah, it was kind of confusing last night but I was getting a directory listing…
And I also found this…
https://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/blog/2020/04/26/hello-world/ which gave me the ‘Hello World’ page from what I think should have been the network main site.
I think your host uses CPanel… Right?
In your CP, from the addon or subdomain buttons, does
mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz
point to the webroot as the same directory WordPress is installed in?
Yes it does
Sub Domain = mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz
Doc Root = /mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz
Re the post – i didn’t delete the base post from when i installed WP
Shouldn’t the doc root be…
/home
Also, the user directory isn’t normally where you would put the website… You can but then you need to adjust all sorts of things to make that work as your webroot!
You really might want to ask your web host for help now as, if I’m right, then they might have the tools to quickly move things around and fix your problem.
And, if I’m wrong, they might be able to sort this out quickly and prevent my ‘bad advice’ from confusing things further… Nobody knows their servers like your web host should.
The other option might be to just create an index.html file that you could easily recognize and drop it into the /home directory and see if that shows up as http://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/
Here’s a test page if you have no better ideas…
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage Express 2.0">
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<p><font size="7"><strong>Test Page!</strong></font></p>
<p><font size="4"><strong>And nothing but test page!</strong></font></p>
<p><font size="1"><strong>Been nice if there was a really cool
picture</strong></font></p>
<p><font size="1"><strong>of a horse, a truck, a deer, or
something.</strong></font></p>
<p><font size="2"><strong>But, no!!!!, All we get is a test page!</strong></font></p>
</body>
</html>
Just copy and paste to a file called index.html and drop it in the otherwise empty directory. Don’t overwrite anything.
Spoke to my hosting company (Inmotion Hosting) and they said they don’t provide installation support for Multisite 🙁 I have a VPS with them with Root access
I deleted all existing sites and started again this time in /public_html/mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz
Base install of WP 5.4 via Softaculous with WPMU enabled
No Plugins, No additional themes (installs with Twenty Twenty)
Again – no issues with the Main site mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz
As soon as i create the second site http://mb-multistore.dev-sites.nz/test-site/ i get issues
– i can access wp-admin but the console is full of 404 errors
– i can access a ‘front end’ but again console is full of errors, no styling or template
Big question?!
You mentioned the htaccess file early on but the 404 error I saw this time around showed an Nginx server instead of an Apache box. Is that an Nginx server? Htaccess doesn’t work on an Nginx box. The directives in the htaccess file must be converted to directives for the Nginx HTTP config file (whatever that is called. I can’t remember exactly).
I’ve been told a multisite can run from an Nginx box but I’ve never tried it. Too much like work for me.
This might be the reason the theme files for the subsite doesn’t work but you are on the right track otherwise with what I’ve seen this time around.
There is a slight issue in the main site but I think that might be a cache issue that will clear itself.
So found a good resolution. Don’t use Inmotion Hosting for Multisite. Went to Siteground and was up and running pretty much straight away.