I updated to WordPress 2.3. It went pretty well, with one exception.

My host, Yahoo!, does not allow .htaccess files. It developed a plug-in to provide for pretty permalinks. Without using their plug-in WordPress’ permalinks options (besides default) do not work. The problem is described in the WordPress help forums.

For the time being I have disabled my pretty permalinks.

We will see if Yahoo fixes this in short order – but I have my doubts. Many of their promises about automatically updating WordPress were never kept…

I will also play with their plug-in, and see if I can fix it.

Sorry for any problems related to my permalinks. If I cannot resolve this I will be seeking another host. Things should not be this difficult, with workarounds and plug-ins to handle things most folks just handle.

Update:

Mark Jaquith of Mark on WordPress discusses WordPress 2.3 Canonical URLs and the problems they may cause.

He has a one line plug-in that disables canonical URL redirection.

I installed the plug-in and reactivated the Yahoo! plug-in. Everything works now. I will use this until Yahoo corrects its issues – or until I move to a different provider.