How to troubleshoot 500 Internal Server Error?
Posted on October 14th, 2016
The 500 Internal Server Error will be familiar to all Internet users. There are various http status codes which are three-digit integers. For every request, there will be a status code to return from the server to the client. Usually, we’d have come through various errors like 404 Not Found error. These error codes are actually http status codes. The 500 Internal Server Error is also an http status code. In this article, we are going to see about 500 Internal Server Error in detail.
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The 500 Internal Server Error
The 5xx errors are the status codes returned by the server when the server encounters an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request from a client. The 500 Internal Server Error is the general catch all error when the server throws an exception. It is the error message when no more specific error message is suitable. It may be difficult to troubleshoot this error because it can be triggered out by many different issues. One common cause of this error is scripting issues such as a form fails to handle a missing or incorrect value correctly. Various server faults can also cause this error like a failed disk or nonfunctional software module. Simply, the 500 Internal Server Error is a general http status code that means something has gone wrong on the website’s server, but the server could not be more specific on what that exact problem is. It is rare but not impossible that the issues with the computers that connect to the server are triggering this error.
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Troubleshooting 500 Internal Server Error
As we’ve seen earlier, it’s a little bit difficult to troubleshoot this error because many issues can lead to the 500 Internal Server Error. Let’s see what steps are necessary to resolve a 500 Internal Server Error page.
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Troubleshooting the 500 Internal Server Error from Client Side
The 500 Internal Server Error is caused by the server, there are only a few actions which can be taken from the client side.
1) Restart the browser after clearing the cache and deleting the cookies.
2) Take it as a 504 Error
Restart the browser after clearing the cache and deleting the cookies
The 500 Internal Server Error is not often related to the caching issues but it is possible sometimes the issue will be fixed after you clear the browser cache and cookies. It is not something that you need a high technical knowledge.
In Google Chrome you can clear the cache and cookies by following the below steps.
1) Press Ctrl + Shift + Delete.
2) You will get a window to clear the browsing data. Ensure that the boxes are checked as in the below screenshot.
3) Click on the button “Clear browsing data”.
To clear cache and cookies in Mozilla Firefox,
Please follow the below steps to clear cache.
1) Press Ctrl + Shift + Delete.
2) You will get a window regarding clear recent history. Ensure that the boxes are checked as in the below screenshot.
3) Click on the button “Clear Now”.
Take it as a 504 Error
The 504 Gateway Timeout is returned when the server did not receive a timely response from another server that it was accessing while attempting to load the web page or fill another request by the browser. This may occur when the other server is down or not working properly. Sometimes the web server may return a 500 Internal Server Error instead of the 504 Gateway Timeout, but that is not common.
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Troubleshooting the 500 Internal Server Error from Server Side
If you are the webmaster or the website administrator, you can troubleshoot the error from the server side too. As we’ve seen earlier, the 500 Internal Server Error can be caused by many issues. However, we are going to see some common issues triggering this error.
1) External Resource Timeout
2) Issues triggered by wrong file and directory permissions
3) Misconfiguration in .htaccess file
External Resource Timeout
Sometimes the web server may need responses from a remote server to complete processing the request from a client. There can be situations that these external resources may timeout. This can be a php timeout. In such cases, the webserver will return a 500 Internal Server Error. We can fix this error by increasing timeout values or setting other appropriate timeout options so that the remote server will not return a timeout error but wait for the request to be processed.
Issues triggered by Wrong File and Directory Permissions
This is the cause of most Internal Server Errors. If the permission of one more file or directories needed to process the request of the client is set wrongly, it will not be accessible to the server so that the error is returned. The wrong permission of a php script is an example of this type issue. This issue can be fixed by resetting the correct permission on the file or directory.
Misconfiguration in .htaccess file
Another common cause of the 500 Internal Server Error is a misconfiguration in the .htaccess file. Errors in URL rewriting can lead to, but not often a 500 Internal Server Error. Locating and correcting the misconfiguration in the .htaccess file can fix this issue.
If you need any further assistance please contact our support department.
thanks a lot
Hello,
I have been experiencing this 500 internal server error for several months now.
I have tried most ways to solve it but I can’t.
I get this error whenever I try to add my Adsense verification code on my header.
Plugins, FTP, theme editing have failed.
Will be glad for your assistance.
Thank you
Please open a ticket with the support department: https://www.interserver.net/resolve
thanks. that was indeed very insightful
Thanks for listing type of internal server error ( 500). But, It would be more helpful to go in details on how to solve the issue from the server side. I understood the steps you put, but it is not enough for me to troubleshoot this error. Thanks for posting this anyhow.
We can take a look. If you have an existing plan with us, please open a ticket with our support department: https://www.interserver.net/contact-information.html
Mine did not work
love your article man thanks for sharing
This is not a very broad article and is typical of the closed minded attitude that php and apache developers have. There is not .htaccess file for IIS. Your “solutions” only apply to php websites so you should probably adjust the title of your article to indicate this.
I was a programmer for 3M in Iowa many years ago and found that the ISE only appeared for certain people. Turned out they had to use a different browser and clean their history. Then it worked. Thomas Falater, Iowa City, IA
how to find connection is not available to connection is available
have recd. a 500 error on firefox only on desktop usage.only.
ON mobile , laptop or pad it works fine. This only applies on Firefox. Chrome usage works fine.
Suggestions?
In our uni uaar class room in any issue and written on page 500 server error what is this
I just wank to thank you very much staff for this information, it was very helpful. I just followed the steps and vwaa·
laa. Be safe in these hard times.
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
This is the message I’m getting. What should I do now?
This is probably an issue with the server configuration – At the application level or at the server level. Please contact support to get this issue solved quickly!
Hii pavithra.. i hv same issue,did u troubleshoot for thi issue???
Hello Suma,
Greetings from InterServer support.
Please feel free to open a quick Live chat session from our website and share us the exact error screenshot using http://i.is.cc/ and our tech team will be right here to assist you.
Have a great day.
hi i am facing 500 error in my blog site. its a WordPress site.even i couldn’t enter the dashboard. can i know how to resolve the problem.
thank you
Mercy
Hello,
Greetings from InterServer Support.
I would first check .htaccess file of your WordPress installation directory and make sure it has following code:
# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END WordPress
If you still have any questions please feel free to start a Live Chat support session from our website.
Have a great day.
Yes good i like it
I’m facing a 500 error
I tried to go on Vs battle wiki and Death Battle wiki as well as other wiki sites but they keep saying Internal Server Error but when using my phone is works fine, can someone please help?
Kindly check the .htaccess file and file/directory permissions. If cPanel/Directadmin, you can try by running permission scripts. Please contact our support via live chat or ticket system, so we can better assist you directly with any service you have ordered through us.
For any valid api (say /x/y/z), if I alter it by adding (‘//’ say /x/y//z or /x/y/z//) leads to 500 error. Is it right behavior because I was under assumption that this should throw 404 or 400 instead of 500.
Whitelabel Error Page
This application has no explicit mapping for /error, so you are seeing this as a fallback.
Mon Oct 11 10:02:33 IST 2021
There was an unexpected error (type=Internal Server Error, status=500).
Hi, Kindly adjust width of this textarea at 100% text area is out of the box
Please my site; https://www.expomaster.com.ng is having these issues, how do I go about it, please I need timely response
Feel free to contact our Live Chat support via https://chat.is.cc/livechat?mode=popout
Our support team will be able to assist you with any service you have ordered through us.
How do i migrate a site to interserver
Feel free to contact our Live Chat support via https://chat.is.cc/livechat?mode=popout
Our support team will be able to assist you with the steps.
Please, I have been searching for a way to solve this server error for a couple of hours, I am glad i got to this helpful content. But please is there a way you can explain it better so newbies in the space like me would better understand. My site was also having this same issue. Just got to rectify it. Thanks a whole lot.
So, a little more clarification and less dev terms would suffice
Feel free to contact our Live Chat support via https://chat.is.cc/livechat?mode=popout
Our support team will be able to assist you with any service you have ordered through us.
Hi I am facing 500 error in my blog site. It’s a WordPress site. I can’t access the dashboard as well.
I can see it’s loading now. Feel free to contact our Live Chat support via https://chat.is.cc/livechat?mode=popout if the issue persists.
Our support team will be able to assist you with any service you have ordered through us.
The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.
i am getting the above error. please advise
Feel free to contact our Live Chat support via https://chat.is.cc/livechat?mode=popout
Our support team will be able to assist you with any service you have ordered through us.
Hello,
I was tring to move website to 1 core 2 gb ram on intreserver but some time in high traffic we are getting 500 error on ajax calls what should i do cause previously on nginx server there was not any problem.
Please contact our support via live chat or ticket system, so we can better assist you directly with any service you have ordered through us.
500 error
Feel free to contact our Live Chat support via https://chat.is.cc/livechat?mode=popout
Our support team will be able to assist you with any service you have ordered through us.
I had more problems with the 404 error, but the 500 error one can also be a nuisance.
Hi,
I get your point, can you please reach our support, so we can assist you with the issue.