Permalinks not working and .htaccess file is blank?

I spent a LONG time getting permalinks for my normal posts to function on my locally hosted WAMP server by editing httpd.conf, so that can’t be the issue. I then spent a LONG time getting my posts to display as %category%/%postname by updating the .htaccess file. Next I spent forever setting up custom post types with the Types plugin and using taxonomies to create custom post permalinks as %taxonomy%/%postname. Somehow, my custom posts show up when I visit their permalinks, but my regular posts no longer show up when I go to their permalinks – despite trying various settings under wordpress setting>permalinks. The regular posts do show up on my index page though.

In rechecking the .htaccess file, this is all it says now

# BEGIN WordPress

# END WordPress

For some unknown reason, despite having adjusted it last night, the last modified date for the .htacces file is reverted to April 2011??

Help!! I’m very new to wordpress and currently using Twenty-Fourteen just to get a feel for wordpress and test out plugins and custom post types before attempting to build my own theme.