Software Development:
Individual Programming

Symptom

When you enter the url of your website in a browser, after a few seconds the browser responds with „ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS“ and „The website redirects the request so that it can never be terminated.”

Cause

In the web server, the .htaccess file and the website configuration different default domains are set. For example the web server has been configured to redirect all request to the spelling without “www”, but in the .htaccess file a rewrite rule redirects all requests to the spelling with “www”. Several of such contradictory settings create redirection loops. After a certain number of redirects the browser ends the request. Please also pay attention too ssl/non-ssl redirection loops.

Solution

Check and correct these settings:

1) In the hosting settings of the web space control panel change the „preferred domain“ to „non“. This enables the web server to respond to a request in the spelling that it came in, e.g. requests with “www” and without “www”.

2) Make sure that the settings of the software that your website is using and the settings of your .htaccess file that is located in the document root directory of your website use the same preferred domain spelling. For example, when your wp_options table of a Wordpress installation configures your domain without the “www” prefix in the “homepage” and “siteurl” datasets, the corresponding .htaccess file must not redirect requests to the spelling with the “www” prefix.

3) Make sure that you are either using ssl or not, but do not have parts of your site referring to ssl (https://) and others referring to non-ssl (http://). Nowadays it is best to run the whole website through https://.

Overview of frequently asked questions