Pagination Confusion - forbidden errors & category list question

Very new here, but i am really liking Grav so far. I am setting up a blog style website and struggling a little with pagination. When I click on page 2 I am taken to /page:2 and receive a forbidden error, same with archive links like archive:jul_2017. I found one comment online where someone was missing a taxonomy directory in their user/pages/ directory. I don’t have a directory called taxonomy right now. I don’t believe I deleted it though. I tried re-installing the pagination plugin.

I am also struggling to output a categories list w/ a number of posts, similar to the archive plugin. I can’t seem to find any examples of this to borrow from.

Thanks in advance.

Are you on windows by any chance? if so: https://learn.getgrav.org/troubleshooting/forbidden