WordPress refuses to read the .htaccess file and gives a 404 for sub-pages

by

Even though the 000-default.conf file had…

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        <Directory /var/www/html/>
            Options FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

I had to place…

<Directory /var/www/html/>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Into the apache2.conf

And use the sudo service apache2 restart command.