I hate to ask the obvious, but do actually you see an index.php file listed in the directory when the page opens? If not, should there be one? and if so, what happens when you click on it?
That is a fair question (I used to work tech support, so I’m understand asking the obvious). There is an index.php and clicking it just displays the file list again.
I also meant to add that the login page works, but after entering the login credentials, I get the file list for the admin directory. Going to the installer script, it says that WP is installed and gives me a link to the login page.
I guess I should have also mentioned that this happened while transitioning to a new server. All works fine on the old server (Ubuntu based) but the new server (Arch based) has these issues. The domain name should be fine as I have set the old domain name in my host file to point to the new server (lets me test without committing the DNS info).
Problem solved: in my vhosts file I had this line within the site’s information
DirectoryIndex index.htm index.html
I changed it to
DirectoryIndex index.htm index.html index.php
and now all is good. Simple fixes always seem to be the hardest to find (for me anyway).