Ran across a silly issue the other day while trying to password protect a couple of subdirectories. After I setup the folder above the 2 subdirectories, it worked fine. I did the exact same setup and was unable to login, slaved at this for about an hour with no productive results.
I Finally broke down and contacted cpanel, which promptly told me I was a senseless slag with no hope of my knuckles ever leaving the ground…
well, not really, they actually answered me with 5 minutes and said there needed to be index files in the directories in the folders before the password protection would work.
Derp…
In working with cpanel for the last 10+ years, I have never come across this issue… I learn something from them everyday… I love those guys…