Codeigniter and .htaccess file to ignore index.php - .htaccess

Question

So I'm having a weird problem with .htaccess file and codeigniter. I have a wamp server on my local machine and there it works as expected. I have folders like that wamp/www/my_app and in my_app folder i have .htaccess file like that:
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /my_app/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
</IfModule>
And in mine config.php gile i have:
$config['base_url']='';
$config['index_page']='';
$config['uri_protocol']='AUTO';
So i tried uploading that project to debian server on link like apps.myserver.com/my_app. I put my app to folder var/www/my_app. But the trick is that it doesn't work.
I have tried changing uri_protocol to all 5 options but no change. I also tried putting .htaccess file to var/www instead of var/www/my_app but no change either.
I keep getting that stupid 404 Not Found error when i try to access controlers without index.php prefix.
Any ideas?
EDIT: I checked phpinfo on server and found that mod_rewrite is in loaded modules.

Answer 1

The mod_rewrite module can have a couple different extensions. Your Debian server might use mod_rewrite.so instead of mod_rewrite.c.
That said, if you know mod_rewrite is enabled, and your application isn't being widely distributed and needs to check for it, you can safely eliminate the if checks.
You mentioned commenting out everything except lines 3 and 7 -- you commented out the RewriteBase definition, which broke stuff.
Try something simple, and work from there:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /my_app/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
Also, one variation you can do if an .htaccess is being weird, is to change everything after index.php to a query string. Note the ? here:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]
You may or may not to change the uri_protocol config setting in CodeIgniter. My guess is you specifically won't, but it's info for others who are having .htaccess issues.