apache basic auth stopped working

i have a subdirectory of my site protected by a password using the following in .htaccess:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "track7 administration"
AuthUserFile /path/to/htpasswd

require valid-user

it's working fine on my test server at home, and it was working fine on dreamhost until a couple days ago. now when i attempt to access this subdirectory i get prompted like i should, but then when i give it the correct user and password i get back a blank page.

i checked the log at ~/logs/example.com/http/error.log and there's nothing from these attempts. in ~/logs/example.com/http/access.log it shows a single request for the protected directory with a return code of 401, which seems normal except that it stops there. on my test server where it's working, i get a 401 followed by a 200.

i normally start at http://www.example.com/protected/ and then use links there to get to other php scripts. i tried adding index.php or one of the other script names to the end but still get the same results, or on linux it asks to save the php file (which ends up being 0 bytes).

if i comment out the require valid-user line in the .htaccess file it works fine but of course doesn't ask for a user. is there anything else i can look at to figure out what's going on here, or do i need to contact support? if it matters, i'm on coonan.

track7 - my dream-hosted site

i'm still seeing this, and it seems to be affecting svn too (or maybe that's separate, but i get blank pages there as well). i now have a support ticket in for each issue -- hopefully it'll be as simple as restarting something.

i'm still open to suggestions of other things to look at while i wait to hear back from support.

some additional details are that i can enter the correct username and the wrong password and see the same result as correct username with correct password. wrong username prompts me again. svn is publicly browsable -- it's correctly not prompting for a password and always shows a blank page.

track7 - my dream-hosted site

support cleared things up for me -- turns out there were some hung apache processes which they killed and then restarted apache.

track7 - my dream-hosted site