htaccess basic authentication just stops working.

[rpjones007]

I'm using Apache Basic Authentication (htaccess) to protect a subdirectory within my website.  I can't figure out why, but occasionally (every couple of weeks), the authentication seems to just stop working.  I manage the server myself, so I know there are no server side changes.  I can't figure it out. 

In order to isolate the problem, I turned off AllowOverride:
AllowOverride None

So, rather than using .htaccess file in the directory, I moved all of my directives into the main /etc/httpd/conf.d/site.conf file:

<Directory /var/www/sites/steamers/admin>
  AuthName "Admin Console"
  AuthType Basic
  AuthUserFile /var/www/htpasswd/steamers.htpasswd
  require valid-user
</Directory>

There is only one user in the steamers.htpasswd file.  For a while, it will be working just fine, and then for some unknown reason, it will just stop authenticating.  The authentication window still comes up, but the user and password stop working.  I can change the password at the command line and reload apache, but it still doesn't work.

The even weirder thing is that if I go into the /etc/httpd/conf.d/site.conf file, comment out the entire section that I listed above, and restart apache attempting to disable authentication altogether, the authentication window still comes up.  I can't even disable authentication.

This is killing me right now.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[apacheguy]

Do you have the latest version of apache?  This may be a bug in the server that was fixed by a previous release.