ajax file not loading because of trailing slash - regex

Question

I have an ajax file that is called when someone begins to type in search bar. I have recently been cleaning up my urls and removing file extentions adding trailing slashes, since then my ajax file doesnt appear to load anymore. can anyone help? here my htaccess so far
Options +FollowSymlinks
Options +Indexes
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.php
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\ /[^.#?\ ]+\.php([#?][^\ ]*)?\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]

Answer 1

Assuming that your AJAX requests go to the /includes folder, and your normal pages do not, we can modify your rules a bit so that they look like this (including Cags' comment about the RewriteCond):
Options +FollowSymlinks
Options +Indexes
RewriteEngine on
# We'll do the redirect first, so no other rules get in the way
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\ /([^.#?\ ]+)\.php([#?][^\ ]*)?\ HTTP/
# Make sure the request didn't start with "includes"
RewriteCond %1 !^includes/
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L]
I also think that you either wanted /? at the end of the rules in the center block, or /$1/ as the replacement on the rule in the first block, so that the redirect from /page.php to /page gets interpreted correctly after the first redirect (I think right now you'll get redirected twice, once by the first block, and again by the last block).