Rewrite subdomain to subfolder causes loop error or 403 - .htaccess

Question

I have a local Apache server set up on my machine, with wildcard DNS in place. I have it set up so that it works like [foldername].loc. So, for instance, a folder under my htdocs folder called MyDomain, would be accessed via mydomain.loc. This code works fine, and the code in my .htaccess in my htdocs is below:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?([a-z0-9-]*\.)?([a-z0-9-]+)\.loc$ [NC]
RewriteCond %3::%{REQUEST_URI} !^(.*?)::/\1/?
RewriteRule (.*) /%3/$1 [PT,QSA]
Now, the above code also passes through subdomains, such as "john.mydomain.loc". Now, I have the following folder structure in the folder MyDomain:
MyDomain
- active
- index.php
- working
- index.php
.htaccess
In the .htaccess of MyDomain is the following code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^live\.mydomain\.loc$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /active/$1 [L]
What this should do, if I understand correctly, is take http://live.mydomain.loc/ and rewrite it to be http://mydomain.loc/active/. Note that I said rewrite, not redirect.
With the code above, however, I get a message in the Apache error log:
[client 127.0.0.1] Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary. Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace.
If I change the .htaccess of MyDomain to read as follows:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^live\.mydomain\.loc$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /active/$1 [L]
When I use this code, it always comes up with a 403 error, saying I don't have permission to view the folder /mydomain/. If I set Options +Indexes, I only see the folder index of /mydomain. So where along the line is the above code failing?
I have also tried the above code with RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/active/. This has made no difference in the results.
I have tried this for over two days, and I can't figure it out. I hope the brilliant minds of StackOverflow can help figure this out. :)

Answer 1

Try setting the rewrite base to where the file actually is:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /MyDomain/
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^live\.mydomain\.loc$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ active/$1 [L]
And making the /active/ relative: active/

Answer 2

I solved this using the code below:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^live\.mydomain\.loc$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mydomain/active/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ active/$1 [L]
The primary fix was RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mydomain/active/. The difference is, the first line I tried, RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/active, would match /access/index.php, but not /mydomain/active/index.php.
I hope this helps someone else.