In this case, there could be file permissions or restrictive access issue which is causing ‘403 – Forbidden Error’. There are some settings you need to check to fix the file access and permission issue. Please refer the steps given below to verify the settings.
1. Check if apache configuration file has ‘AllOverride All‘, it reflects the setting from .htaccess. If not then change it to ‘AllowOverride All’ and restart the Apache server.
<Directory /var/www/html> Require all granted <Directory <your directory path>> Options +Indexes
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>
If it is already set then skip this step.2. Check if in .htaccess has ‘Allow from all‘, if it is ‘deny from all’ then change it ‘Allow from all’ as follows:
Allow from all
</Directory>3. If it is already set and still it is not working then make sure your file permission is set to ‘755‘
