.htpasswd and .htaccess - internal server error

Question

I want to password protect my website, but as soon as I add in the .htpasswd and .htaccess files I get a server error:

Internal Server Error

Answer 1

All of the standard answers (full path, correct format, etc) weren't working for me. After a lot of tracking down I found that the permissions on the parent folder were insufficient, so even though the path in .htaccess was correct and the permissions on the file were rw-r-r, still no go because the parent was rwx-rw--. That can be tough to track down on a host that limits access to up stream folders.