CakePHP 3 htaccess ignore directory - .htaccess

Question

After a lot of research I'm still struggling.
My ./.htaccess file looks like this:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/trackparser/.*$
RewriteRule ^(\.well-known/.*)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
However, if I go to www.mysite.com/trackparser it just gives me a missing controller error.
How do I make it ignore the trackparser directory?

Answer 1

Besides the required / as mentioned by #GregSchmidt, rewrite conditions only apply to the first rule that is following them, so your config basically says:
IF (URI != ^/trackparser/.*$) {
RewriteRule ^(\.well-known/.*)$ $1 [L]
}
RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
What you want is to apply all three rules if the URI doesn't match ^/trackparser/.*$. To achieve that you can invert the condition and use a skipping rule, which when applied, will skip N number of the subsequent rules:
RewriteRule ^(\.well-known/.*)$ $1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/trackparser(/.*|$)
RewriteRule . - [S=2]
RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
This will skip the 2 CakePHP webroot rules in case the condition is met, so it's basically doing:
RewriteRule ^(\.well-known/.*)$ $1 [L]
IF (URI != ^/trackparser(/.*|$)) {
RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
}
Note the removed negation operator, and the added (/.*|$) to make the ending slash optional. The rule for the well-known directory (certificate validation) could theoretically also be skipped, but I'd make it exempt in order to avoid it accidentally not being applied because of later changes.
See also
Apache > HTTP Server > Documentation > Version 2.4 > Modules > Apache Module mod_rewrite > RewriteCond Directive
Apache > HTTP Server > Documentation > Version 2.4 > Rewrite > RewriteRule Flags > S|skip