Recently clean-installed (with exception of themes and content/upload folders) an old wordpress to the latest WordPress 4.2.2.

I continue to get this error below whenever I load files such as style.css in the web browser manually.

I’ve tried:

• changing this file’s permission to 644, 755, and 777
• changing .c to .so in the .htaccess
• changing htaccess permission from 644 to 755 to even 777.
• adding mod_sec clause to htaccess

None of the above works for me. This error still occurs? I’m running PHP 5.4.43 and WordPress 4.2.2.

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /blog/wp-content/themes/wp-knowledge-base/style.css on this server.
Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe

Apache/2.4.12 (Unix) OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_bwlimited/1.4 Server at subdomain.domain.com Port 80