I was getting the above error message when I recently tried to set up and try out Windows Live Writer to let me publish to a blog from my desktop without logging into the Admin section of the site. I was felled at the first hurdle when, after entering my b2evolution blog’s details, I was presented with a message informing me that:
The server reported an error with the following URL:
http://www.blog-domain.com/b2evo-path/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php
403 Forbidden
Thinking it might be a problem with b2evolution, I tried with a WordPress blog. A different message appeared, both on this blog and another:
The server has reported that the following URL could bot be found
http://nerd.steveferson.com/xmlrpc.php
please ensure that you have specified a valid and reachable URL
I discovered help was at hand after searching for help with the WordPress problem. According to posters at the Windows Live forum, some hosts block access to any files called xmlrpc.php because of a security vulnerability in an early version of WordPress. This same problem (and same solution) seemed to apply to b2evolution too (though I don’t understand why there are 2 different error messages). To get round this you need to add the following to a .htaccess file in the same directory as your xmlrpc.php file (or create a .htaccess file containing this if you don’t already have one):
<Files xmlrpc.php>
SecFilterInheritance Off
</Files>
Simple really, no? Enjoy!
