Error on page load, pulling my hair out trying to troubleshoot

I apologize if this is not the right place to post this issue, but I'm at a loss at this point and can't get the website to work properly.

I have updated my apache config to what the install guide included, and I am using an .htaccess file that I found on linux forums that I have used for other projects. I'm not seeing any errors in my apache logs or the application logs.

Whenever I install and get everything up and running, the webpage loads and when I click on a link i get the error:

Error: "Something went wrong attempting to load page directly"

The page then loads a 500, however if I add "index.php/<page name" it loads as expected.

These are the the modules enabled:

<username>@wowcms:/var/www/fusiongen$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
Module rewrite already enabled
<username>@wowcms:/var/www/fusiongen$ sudo a2enmod headers
Module headers already enabled
<username>@wowcms:/var/www/fusiongen$ sudo a2enmod expires
Module expires already enabled
<username>@wowcms:/var/www/fusiongen$ sudo a2enmod deflate
Considering dependency filter for deflate:
Module filter already enabled
Module deflate already enabled

vHost Config:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName <serverip>
    ServerAlias <serverip>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/fusiongen
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/fusiongen_error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/fusiongen_access.log combined

    <Directory /var/www/fusiongen>
        RewriteEngine On
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

mod_rewrite block in the .htaccess file:

<ifModule mod_rewrite>
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ./index.php?/$1 [L]
</ifModule>

I'm losing it, I can't get this thing to redirect properly, any help will be appreciated.

FusionGen / FusionGEN

Error on page load, pulling my hair out trying to troubleshoot #102