[config ok?]

yes AssignUserId  #43959 is set in the virtualhost I am using for testing,
and if I print posix_getuid() in the php file I am accessing I
get 43959 back so it appears to be running as the correct user when
accessing the php file.  In this case there is no .htaccess file, it is
just having problems looking for the .htaccess file because the document
root directory is chmod 700.