Troubleshoot 403 errors

403 error behavior

• 403 errors will usually be shown on screen immediately
• 403 errors often occur during setup or after code or configuration changes
• 403 errors here are often rendered using a fortrabbit error page template

Common reasons and solutions

In most cases this is not a server issue, but a problem with your code and/or configuration. Please check the following common issues first:

No code deployed

A common reason for the 403 page is that no code has been deployed yet. Please deploy some code. See our access methods article to get started.

.htaccess problems

Sometimes 403 errors are caused by issues with .htaccess. Check your .htaccess file. Developers using SFTP often forget to upload that hidden file. See our .htaccess help.

Wrong root path

Our software presets help to choose the right root path for the App. You may have chosen no software preset or installed a different software than originally selected. In such cases you need to manually set the root path to what your software requires. See App root path help.

File permissions

Sometimes 403 errors are caused by wrong file permissions. This can happen when you deploy with SFTP or SSH or sometimes Git. Make sure that PHP has write permissions for files like composer.json, composer.lock, storage/*, vendor/*. Set the file permissions for those files to 744 with your SFTP client or by SSH. All *.php files should also be executable.

# Use for a folder and all it's contents recursively
chmod -R 744 directoryname

# Change a specific file name
chmod 744 filename

Missing index.php or index.html file

Sometimes people forget to upload an index file. The web server will look for that. When it's not present, it can nto deliver anything. Check your directory if either an index.php or index.html file is present.

Missing http-auth credentials

If you have used HTTP auth to protect your website from unwanted visitors and someone is trying access that without entering the correct username and password, a 403 access denied error will occur.

DNS issues

Sometimes it takes a while until DNS is propagated. This can be when your App is new, you have upgraded the scaling or you have just routed a domain. Wait a little and try again.

Wrong address

You might have an error with URL. Check for typos in the address bar (URL) of your browser.

It could also be something on our side

It is also possible — although less likely - that this error is caused by a network, hardware or configuration issue on our side, your hosting provider. Please check our status page under status.fortrabbit.com if there are any ongoing maintenance windows or service issues known.

Contacting support

Whether your investigation (see above) leads to possible service issues on our side, or you are stuck debugging the issue on your own, don't hesitate to contact us.

Please include logs and additional information with your support request.

• Contact support