Knowledge Base

Website hosted in Plesk shows 403 Forbidden or blank page: pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable

Website hosted in Plesk is not working:

You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Or, a blank page is shown instead of content.
Error in Domains > example.com > Logs:

(13)Permission denied: /var/www/vhosts/example.com/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable, referer: http://example.com/
(13)Permission denied: [client 203.0.113.2:39024] AH00529: /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable and that '/var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/' is executable

Incorrect permissions on domain files or folders.

Repair permissions for the website content:

Login to Plesk
Go to Tools & Settings > Diagnose & Repair
In File System section select Only the Virtual Hosts Files and click Check Selected:
Click Show Issues when some are detected to view the details:
Click Repair to repair all detected issues for all virtual hosts files.

Connect to the server via SSH.
Execute the following command (replacing example.com with the domain name):

# plesk repair fs example.com
Add required permissions for all the folders inside the document root of the website:

# find /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;
Add required permissions for all files inside the document root of the website:

# find /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} ;
Set the proper ownership:

# chown jdoe:psaserv /var/www/vhosts/example.com

Connect to the server via SSH.
Execute the following command (replace example.com in the command below with the domain name:

# INFO=($(MYSQL_PWD=`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` mysql -uadmin psa -sN -e'SELECT h.www_root,s.login FROM domains d, hosting h, sys_users s WHERE s.id=h.sys_user_id AND h.dom_id=d.id AND d.name="example.com"')); chown -R ${INFO[1]}:psacln ${INFO[0]}; chown ${INFO[1]}:psaserv ${INFO[0]}
Execute the following command (replacing example.com with the domain name):

# plesk repair fs example.com
Add executable for all the folders inside the document root of the website:

# find /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;