Turning on SEO and .htaccess locks me out of admin

Hi
I am completely new to Opencart, having just installed 1.4.8b yesterday.

When I turn SEO on and change the htaccess.txt to .htaccess I cannot login to admin - I get a 'server error 500' message instead of the login page.

As I want to be able to create SEO friendly urls from the outset, this is a problem!

I have not been able to find a solution on the boards or reports of this as a bug, so am stumped - can anyone help?

Many thanks in advance - ps I am not a coder, but can follow instructions :-)

so you get the 500 error on the frontend too?

if so try commenting out everything in the .htaccess before rewrite engine on

Hi Xsecrets
Thanks for your reply and suggestion - I am getting the 500 error on the frontend too.
So I tried the comment (I think!)

From a quick google I put <!-- before and this after --> to comment out all before the rewrite engine on part.

Result is the same, error 500 on admin and shop pages.

I am not sure my commenting is correct though as I have never tried it before?

no in the htaccess file you put # at the beginning of any line you want to comment out. You should see some comments existing in there to see what I mean.

Hi Xsecrets
Thanks so much for that - it works!! :-D

Easy when you know how I guess ;-)

Now I just have to work out how to use it all! lol

Am I likely to run into similar hiccups often?

My concern as a none coder and new to opencart is - is it really suitable for someone who doesn't know what they are doing??

Thanks again for your great and fast help - much appreciated :-)

You won't have this issue again with the 500 error unless you delete the htaccess and put a new one back in there with the original code

as long as you're not planning on messing around with the code you should be safe to use the software just fine