[eluser]Will Cheung[/eluser]
Thanks for the replies Bubblz, jedd and brianw1975.
Appreciate the fact that questions seem to be re-asked here.
In response to .htaccess observations - I wasn't aware of the fact that .htaccess files inherited from the root up, but at the same time, what I found really strange was that there hadn't been any .htaccess file changes from when I had deployed the app previously and it worked fine (which led me to believe it was a CI error on my behalf).
I had put the code on a hosted server, but its not public at the moment so apologies for not being able to share an example with you guys. I'm not much of an expert with administering Apache, but I do know that my hosting provider has undergone some server changes recently so I'll investigate.
... will pearoast when I finally get to the bottom of it!