apache 2.2 - Why is everything after RewriteEngine On ignored?

So I'm trying to get mod_rewrite working on my new site. I've used mod_rewrite successfully a few years ago, but this time not a single command after 'RewriteEngine On' works.

I'm getting exactly the same effect on my local Apache 2.2 as I do on my web host's server, so it's not that the server isn't configured for mod_rewrite. My local machine runs Windows, and the remote server is Linux, so they're pretty independent systems. Here's what I've checked so far for my localhost:

• The 'LoadModule rewrite_module' line in httpd.conf is not commented with a #


• I have 'Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes' in place in my httpd.conf for my html directory


• And I have 'AllowOverride All' in place beside the Options line too.


• The .htaccess file I have in my site's root directory is being accessed. Putting nonsense in the first line gets me an Internal Server Error, removing it takes it away


• Putting 'RewriteEngine Cheese' as the first line gets me a line in my error.log that says 'RewriteEngine must be On or Off', so it definitely seems to be ready to do some rewriting...

BUT. Nothing I type after RewriteEngine On has any effect! I can write nonsense in there and get no error message. I've put lots of commands in there as a test, but even this .htaccess file does nothing:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^.*$ test.html [R]

That should rewrite every page I go to to be test.html shouldn't it? And yet, nothing happens at all - if I go to hello.html, I just get a web page saying that hello.html isn't found.

Please can someone offer a suggestion as to what to try next?

Answer

Linux config files, including Apache config files require the last line to be empty. Everything after the last newline will be ignored.