I installed WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04 and when I tried to write a post or edit the default post that comes pre-installed I got an error message:

The response is not a valid JSON response

After a lot of googling and also seeing there was no .htaccess file in the root directory, I thought that the reason for this was that in the apache configuration file I had AllowOverride None. I made a directory specific (to the root directory of my WordPress installation) AllowOverride All and restarted apache. Now I can edit and make new posts without the error message.

I assumed that when I looked at the contents of the root directory I would see a .htaccess file but there is not one there (I have looked for hidden files). I searched the sub directories and did find one .htaccess file at ./wp-content/plugins/akismet/.htaccess which was created or modified in July. Also Akismet seems to be to do with spam so I thought it was unlikely to be anything to do with the error I had been getting when I tried to create or edit posts.

Although my WordPress installation now appears to be working, I would like to know why the AllowOverride directive change, which seems to be very much to do with enabling .htaccess files, solved the problem but did not result in a .htaccess appearing in the root directory. I thought I had read that WordPress requires a .htaccess file in the root directory.

I would be very interested in understanding what the situation is in relation to .htaccess files and WordPress and the results I obtained by changing the AllowOverride directive.