Hi all I’m using excel to perform a webquery which is assigned to a macro in order to refresh the data. 
My directory structure looks like this 
/testwebpage 
     .htaccess 
   |--cgi-bin---|
      Test.cgi 
      |---Admin-|
          .htaccess
             Test2.cgi 
          |---passwd-|
        .htpasswd

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The DocumentRoot is testwebpage When the user enters this in the browser http://mytestsite.com/ The .htaccess file in the root directory testwebpage contains DirectoryIndex cgi-bin/test.cgi This will redirect the request to test.cgi inside the cgi-bin directory. When the users enters this http://mytestsite.com/cgi-bin/admin/test.cgi The admin directory contains an .htaccess file which looks like this 
 
AuthUserFile /home/user/testwebpage/passwd/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "protected site"
AuthType Basic

<Limit GET>
require valid-user
</Limit>

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Inside the browser the password dialog box appears and they are able to enter the password and username just fine.
Inside excel when the user presses the button to run the macro Run time error 1004 Unable to open http:// http://mytestsite.com/cgi-bin/admin/test.cgi

The hyperlink cannot be followed to the destination If I was to edit the .htaccess file in the root directory testwebpage From DirectoryIndex cgi-bin/test.cgi To #DirectoryIndex cgi-bin/test.cgi Commenting this line will get rid of the run time error message.
However this will mean users are unable to reach my index page which is test.cgi inside the cgi-bin.

I’ve also noticed when I remove the .htaccess file in the admin directory the macro will work fine however without authentication.

I’ve used wireshark tool to monitor the http packets when the macro is run. A http options request is sent from the server to the client, but no http response from the client to the server with a 200 ok status. I’ve noticed when I comment out this line #DirectoryIndex cgi-bin/test.cgi Inside .htaccess file in the root directory testwebpage. The client will reply with 200 ok status to the options request from the server. Also when I remove the .htaccess file inside the admin directory and also uncomment this line DirectoryIndex cgi-bin/test.cgi I run the macro again to view if the http packets where different
The client responses with 200 ok status including this line Allow: GET,HEAD,POST,OPTIONS,TRACE\r\n This was missing in the 200 ok response when I left the .htaccess file inside the admin directory.

In reply to OT: htaccess problem guru needed by ibra

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