Codeigniter3 EC2 remove index.php

I have an EC2 instance running Ubuntu 16.04. I have installed a LAMP stack and am using Codeigniter.
the removal of index.php is not working as it should. I can reach the first page but if I click on any links in the page it does not work.
I have tried to follow the directions here: CodeIgniter removing index.php from url but, It has not helped

I have tried to edit the apache2.conf to allow override but this gives an error all the time.

I have tried almost every post online.

.htaccess file: (original)

Code:

RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|assets|images|js|css|uploads|favicon.png)
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L,QSA]

config.php:

Code:

$config['index_page'] = '';
$config['uri_protocol']    = 'REQUEST_URI';

header.php:

Code:

<li><a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>">Home</a></li>
       <li><a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>about">About</a></li>
       <li><a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>pricing">Pricing</a></li>

I'd suggest using `base_url` only on the home link.   unless you've added it to your base_url in config.php you might not have a trailing slash the way you have it written. (You should have a trailing slash, but not everyone does it.)

Try site_url() and have the link URI inside the () thusly:

PHP Code:

<li><a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>pricing">Pricing</a></li>  // old 
// I suspect you're getting http://example.compricing


// try this
<li><a href="<?php echo site_url('pricing'); ?>">Pricing</a></li> 
// should give you http://example.com/pricing or http://example.com/index.php/pricing in your browser address bar depending on config.php -> $config['index_page'] =... 


Lastly, are you *sure* rewrite is enabled?

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