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I've done this successfully on two other websites and can't figure out what's going wrong here!  Can anyone help me?!

Details:

Hosting on Bluehost


CMS Version  1.5.3



config.php code
#------------
#URL Settings
#------------

#Show mod_rewrite URLs in the menu? You must enable 'use_hierarchy' for this to work for modules
$config['assume_mod_rewrite'] = true;

#Extension to use if you're using mod_rewrite for pretty URLs.
$config['page_extension'] = '.html';

#If you don't use mod_rewrite, then would you like to use the built-in
#pretty url mechanism?  This will not work with IIS and the {metadata} tag
#should be in all of your templates before enabling.
$config['internal_pretty_urls'] = false;

#If you're using the internal pretty url mechanism or mod_rewrite, would you like to
#show urls in their hierarchy?  (ex. http://www.mysite.com/parent/parent/childpage)
$config['use_hierarchy'] = true;

#If using none of the above options, what should we be using for the query string
#variable?  (ex. http://www.mysite.com/index.php?page=somecontent)
$config['query_var'] = 'page';


.htaccess code
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /

# 301 Redirect all requests that don't contain a dot or trailing slash to
# include a trailing slash
# RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
# RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.
# RewriteRule ^(.*) %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]

# Rewrites urls in the form of /parent/child/
# but only rewrites if the requested URL is not a file or directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+).html$ index.php?page=$1 [QSA]
SetEnv TZ America/New_York

#option to remove directory listings in this folder
Options -Indexes

could there be something missing from my {metadata} tag?  The tag is in the template, so I know that part's okay.

Try using the htaccess that come with the core download:

I think that's what I originally started with.  Just tried it again and nope, that doesn't work either...

Are you by any chance using Dreamweaver to upload the .htaccess file? If so, try using a different FTP program.

Nope, not uploading with Dreamweaver.  I'm using CPanel to upload htaccess.txt, then renaming to .htaccess

SOLVED!

okay,  hopefully NOBODY else suffers from the same kind of stupidity i've suffered from the last couple of days.

here's what happened:
i designed and wrote an entire site, THEN changed the config and htaccess files to implement pretty URLs and no matter what i did, i couldn't get it to work.  i fiddled endlessly with the code in the config and htaccess files, researched exhaustively, posted in forums, and just about gave up, thinking i had a quirky host or a nasty guardian angel.  the one thing i DIDN'T think of was that all the links in my html were written before the mod_rewrite rules so the hrefs were to php query strings.  oh man...... where's the "embarassed" emoticon?