Problem after website and database restore...

I recently recovered from a serious error. I had to restore the entire website from backup. Now I have 2 issues...

1. If I click on Classifieds (websiteurl.com/ads) or Blogs (websiteurl.com/blogs), I get error 403. I tried re-applying the permissions (apply and reversal) from the dolphin 6.1.6 installation and it does not fix the issue. If I use the URL that points directly to either of the php files (website.com/blogs.php), it works fine.

2. If I click on Groups or Photos, I get error 404 not found. Everything else appears to be working fine.

any ideas?

Is the .htacccess file also present?

Yes, it is.

And I forgot to mention that just like how in the first issue, I can go directly to the php file and load it fine, the same goes for the second issue where I get error 404. I am able to load the page just fine if I go directly to the php file. Which I find even more bizarre. What on earth would cause apache to think a php file is not present when using a symbolic link to it?

Maybe the symbolic links are pointing to another resource? Is there a way to check that?

it's something with RewriteEngine  or permalinks     try to disable it in admin section
(Setting --> Permalinks --> uncheck all the boxes)

When I disable, it saves ok. But then I try to test it out and all of the permalinks that were functional during this issue are still functional even though i disabled them.

And the ones that were giving me problems are still not loading. I still get both the 404 and 403 errors.

I even tried restarting apache. Something is definitely wrong with the permalinks. I just don't know what. I have many backups of my website that go back as far as one year. Perhaps I can try restoring specific files that pertain to the permalinks? I just don't know what those files are.

The problem appears to be server related and not with dolphin. I restored a backup to a different machine and it worked fine. I guess I have to recover the entire machine since it will probably take longer to figure this out.

Restoring the server worked as expected. Issue resolved. Something appeared to have messed up the way apache was working. I didnt bother trying to find out what it was for fear that it would take longer to investigate that possibility rather than just restoring the server itself.