Empty .htaccess can cause 500 error?

Question

Apache HTTP Server

Wrote a website without using CMS and PHP, purely HTML pages. But, as soon as I posted it on the server - 1GB.ru. And added the .htaccess file, an error 500 took off. Without the file, it works. I contacted support - they say it's my fault and I'll figure it out. Launched on the local server - does not produce an error.
Tell me, can it really be a matter of the site or support is too lazy to work?

Answer 1

There were some characters in the .htaccess file. I suspect that the encoding is to blame, after I found them and deleted everything works fine.

Answer 2

in my practice, an empty file has never called forbidden. This error is due to incorrect syntax. An empty file can cause clean links to stop working