Title: Disable directory browsing – breaks WordPress
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# Disable directory browsing – breaks WordPress

 *  [John](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hossy923/)
 * (@hossy923)
 * [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disable-directory-browsing-breaks-wordpress/)
 * Turning on the “Indexes” option under “htaccess Suggestions” to disable directory
   browsing causes me to immediately lose access to my WordPress site, both public
   and admin site. The only way to fix it is to SSH into the server and manually
   remove “Options All -Indexes” from the .htaccess file.
 * Interestingly, I found [this page](http://wordpressdesignshop.com/how-to-turn-off-directory-browsing-in-wordpress/)
   that described the same action (“Options All -Indexes”) to disable directory 
   browsing, so I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong.
 * The error page I get is when simply trying to hit the home page:
 * > **Access forbidden!**
   > You don’t have permission to access the requested directory. There is either
   > no index document or the directory is read-protected.
   > If you think this is a server error, please contact the [webmaster](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disable-directory-browsing-breaks-wordpress/%5bno%20address%20given%5d?output_format=md).
   > **Error 403**
   > _mysite.com
   >  Sat Aug 16 04:41:18 2014 Apache mod\_fcgid/2.3.7 mod\_auth\_pgsql/
   > 2.0.3
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-htaccess-control/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-htaccess-control/)

The topic ‘Disable directory browsing – breaks WordPress’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/wp-htaccess-control_f8f8f8.svg)
 * [WP htaccess Control](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-htaccess-control/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-htaccess-control/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-htaccess-control/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-htaccess-control/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-htaccess-control/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-htaccess-control/reviews/)

## Tags

 * [apache](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/apache/)
 * [htaccess](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/htaccess/)
 * [Indexes](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/indexes/)

 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [John](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hossy923/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disable-directory-browsing-breaks-wordpress/)
 * Status: not resolved