简单的重写规则在本地但不在线

I have mod_rewrite installed on my apache server, I've successfully got some rewrite rules working but one is just not working!

I have a search box that produces a url like this:

/search/query-here

I have a page called search.php which accepts query strings like q=query-here

Here is my rewrite rule that works on my site locally: www-mysite.com:8888

RewriteRule ^search/(.*)$ search\.php?q=$1

Although my search.php is being hit/loaded, no query string is being passed to my live version.

When I echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']. "?".$_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]; out I get:

LOCAL: /search.php?q=aa

LIVE: /search.php?

Any ideas what I can do?