The dreaded 500 internal server error. It always seems to come up at the about inopportune time and you're suddenly left scrambling to figure out how to become your WordPress site back online. Trust us, we've all been in that location. Other errors that behave similarly that yous might have also seen include the frightening error establishing a database connectedness and the dreaded white screen of death. But from the moment your site goes down, you're losing visitors and customers. Not to mention it only looks bad for your make.

Today we're going to swoop into the 500 internal server mistake and walk yous through some ways to go your site dorsum online quickly. Read more below nearly what causes this mistake and what you tin can do to prevent it in the hereafter.

  • What is a 500 internal server error?
  • How to set up the 500 internal server error

Bank check Out Our Ultimate Guide to Fixing the 500 Internal Server Mistake

What is a 500 Internal Server Error?

The Cyberspace Engineering Task Forcefulness (IETF) defines the 500 Internal Server Mistake as:

The 500 (Internal Server Mistake) status code indicates that the server encountered an unexpected status that prevented it from fulfilling the request.

When you visit a website your browser sends a request over to the server where the site is hosted. The server takes this request, processes it, and sends back the requested resources (PHP, HTML, CSS, etc.) forth with an HTTP header. The HTTP likewise includes what they telephone call an HTTP status code. A status code is a way to notify you about the status of the request. It could be a 200 status code which ways "Everything is OK" or a 500 status code which means something has gone incorrect.

There are a lot of unlike types of 500 condition error codes (500, 501, 502, 503, 504, etc.) and they all mean something unlike. In this case, a 500 internal server error indicates that the server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request(RFC 7231, section 6.6.i).

500 internal server error in WordPress
500 internal server fault in WordPress

500 Internal Server Fault Variations

Due to the various spider web servers, operating systems, and browsers, a 500 internal server error can nowadays itself in a number of different ways. But they are all communicating the same thing. Below are merely a couple of the many unlike variations you might see on the web:

    • "500 Internal Server Error"
    • "HTTP 500"
    • "Internal Server Error"
    • "HTTP 500 – Internal Server Error"
    • "500 Mistake"
    • "HTTP Fault 500"
    • "500 – Internal Server Error"
    • "500 Internal Server Error. Sad something went wrong."
    • "500. That'south an error. There was an error. Delight try again later. That'south all we know."
    • "The website cannot display the folio – HTTP 500."
    • "Is currently unable to handle this request. HTTP ERROR 500."

You might also meet this message accompanying information technology:

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Delight contact the server ambassador, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything yous might have done that may take caused the fault. More data about this fault may be available in the server error log.

Internal Server Error
Internal Server Error

Other times, y'all might simply come across a blank white screen. When dealing with 500 internal server errors, this is actually quite common in browsers similar Firefox and Safari.

500 internal server error in Firefox
500 internal server error in Firefox

Bigger brands might even have their own custom 500 internal server error letters, such as this ane from Airbnb.

Airbnb 500 internal server error
Airbnb 500 internal server mistake

Here is another creative 500 server error example from the folks over at readme.

readme 500 internal server error
readme 500 internal server error

Fifty-fifty the mighty YouTube isn't rubber from 500 internal server errors.

500 internal server error on YouTube
500 internal server error on YouTube

If it's an IIS 7.0 (Windows) or college server, they accept additional HTTP status codes to more closely betoken the cause of the 500 error:

  • 500.0 – Module or ISAPI error occurred.
  • 500.11 – Application is shutting down on the web server.
  • 500.12 – Application is busy restarting on the web server.
  • 500.xiii – Web server is too busy.
  • 500.15 – Direct requests for global.asax are not immune.
  • 500.nineteen – Configuration data is invalid.
  • 500.21 – Module not recognized.
  • 500.22 – An ASP.NET httpModules configuration does not apply in Managed Pipeline style.
  • 500.23 – An ASP.NET httpHandlers configuration does not utilise in Managed Pipeline style.
  • 500.24 – An ASP.Internet impersonation configuration does non employ in Managed Pipeline way.
  • 500.50 – A rewrite error occurred during RQ_BEGIN_REQUEST notification handling. A configuration or inbound rule execution fault occurred.
  • 500.51 – A rewrite error occurred during GL_PRE_BEGIN_REQUEST notification handling. A global configuration or global rule execution error occurred.
  • 500.52 – A rewrite error occurred during RQ_SEND_RESPONSE notification handling. An outbound rule execution occurred.
  • 500.53 – A rewrite error occurred during RQ_RELEASE_REQUEST_STATE notification handling. An outbound rule execution mistake occurred. The dominion is configured to exist executed earlier the output user cache gets updated.
    500.100 – Internal ASP error.

500 Errors Impact on SEO

Unlike 503 errors, which are used for WordPress maintenance mode and tell Google to check back at a later time, a 500 error tin take a negative affect on SEO if not fixed right away. If your site is just down for say 10 minutes and it's being crawled consistently a lot of times the crawler will only go the folio delivered from cache. Or Google might not even have a chance to re-crawl information technology before it's back up. In this scenario, yous're completely fine.

However, if the site is down for an extended menses of fourth dimension, say 6+ hours, and then Google might run into the 500 error as a site level consequence that needs to be addressed. This could impact your rankings. If you lot're worried nearly repeat 500 errors you should figure out why they are happening to begin with. Some of the solutions below can assistance.

How to Fix the 500 Internal Server Error

Where should y'all start troubleshooting when you see a 500 internal server error on your WordPress site? Sometimes you might not even know where to begin. Typically 500 errors are on the server itself, but from our experience, these errors originate from two things, the showtime isuser error (customer-side issue), and the 2nd is that there is a problem with the server. So nosotros'll dive into a little of both.

Check out these common causes and ways to fix the 500 internal server error and get support and running in no time.

1. Try Reloading the Page

This might seem a piffling obvious to some, but one of the easiest and first things you should effort when encountering a 500 internal server error is to simply wait a minute or so and reload the page (F5 or Ctrl + F5). It could be that the host or server is simply overloaded and the site will come up right back. While y'all're waiting, you could also chop-chop endeavor a different browser to rule that out as an issue.

Another matter you can do is to paste the website into downforeveryoneorjustme.com. This website will tell you if the site is down or if it's a trouble on your side. A tool like this checks the HTTP condition code that is returned from the server. If information technology's anything other than a 200 "Everything is OK" and so it volition return a downwardly indication.

downforeveryoneorjustme
downforeveryoneorjustme

We've also noticed that sometimes this can occur immediately later on you lot update a plugin or theme on your WordPress site. Typically this is on hosts that aren't prepare properly. What happens is they experience a temporary timeout right afterward. Yet, things usually resolve themselves in a couple of seconds and therefore refreshing is all yous need to practice.

2. Articulate Your Browser Cache

Immigration your browser cache is always another good troubleshooting footstep before diving into deeper debugging on your site. Below are instructions on how to articulate cache in the diverse browsers:

  • How to Force Refresh a Single Folio for All Browsers
  • How to Articulate Browser Enshroud for Google Chrome
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Mozilla Firefox
  • How to Articulate Browser Cache for Safari
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Internet Explorer
  • How to Clear Browser Enshroud for Microsoft Edge
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Opera

three. Check Your Server Logs

You should as well accept advantage of your mistake logs. If yous're a Kinsta client, you tin easily see errors in the log viewer in the MyKinsta dashboard. This can aid you quickly narrow down the issue, especially if it's resulting from a plugin on your site.

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Check error logs for 500 internal server errors
Check error logs for 500 internal server errors

If your host doesn't take a logging tool, you can also enable WordPress debugging mode by adding the following code to your wp-config.php file to enable logging:

          define( 'WP_DEBUG', true ); define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); ascertain( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', faux );

The logs are typically located in the /wp-content directory. Others, like here at Kinsta might have a defended binder chosen "logs".

WordPress error logs folder (SFTP)
WordPress error logs folder (SFTP)

You tin also check the log files in Apache and Nginx, which are commonly located hither:

  • Apache: /var/log/apache2/mistake.log
  • Nginx: /var/log/nginx/error.log

If yous're a Kinsta client yous can also take advantage of our analytics tool to get a breakdown of the full number of 500 errors and see how often and when they are occurring. This can aid you troubleshoot if this is an ongoing issue, or mayhap something that has resolved itself.

Response analysis 500 error breakdown
Response analysis 500 error breakdown

If the 500 mistake is displaying considering of a fatal PHP mistake, you can also try enabling PHP error reporting. Simply add the post-obit code to the file throwing the fault. Typically you tin can narrow down the file in the panel tab of Google Chrome DevTools.

          ini_set('display_errors', 1); ini_set('display_startup_errors', i); error_reporting(E_ALL);

And you might need to also change your php.ini file with the following:

          display_errors = on

4. Error Establishing a Database Connexion

500 internal server errors can as well occur from a database connection error. Depending upon your browser you lot might see different errors. But both will generate a 500 HTTP status code regardless in your server logs.

Below is an instance of what an "error establishing a database connection" bulletin looks like your browser. The entire page is blank considering no data tin be retrieved to render the page, every bit the connection is not working properly. Not merely does this break the front-end of your site, but it volition also prevent you from accessing your WordPress dashboard.

Example of error establishing a database connection
Instance of error establishing a database connection

And so why exactly does this happen? Well, hither are a few common reasons below.

  • The most common issue is that yourdatabase login credentials are incorrect. Your WordPress site uses split up login information to connect to its MySQL database.
  • Your WordPress database is corrupted. With so many moving parts with themes, plugins, and users constantly deleting and installing them, sometimes databases get corrupted. This tin be due to a missing or individually corrupted table, or perhaps some information was deleted by accident.
  • You may accept decadent files in your WordPress installation. This can even happen sometimes due to hackers.
  • Problems with your database server. A number of things could be incorrect on the web hosts stop, such equally the database being overloaded from a traffic fasten or unresponsive from too many concurrent connections. This is actually quite mutual with shared hosts as they are utilizing the aforementioned resources for a lot of users on the same servers.

Check out our in-depth post on how to fix the fault establishing a database connexion in WordPress.

5. Cheque Your Plugins and Themes

3rd-party plugins and themes can easily cause 500 internal server errors. We've seen all types cause them hither at Kinsta, from slider plugins to ad rotator plugins. A lot of times you should see the error immediately afterwards installing something new or running an update. This is one reason why nosotros always recommend utilizing a staging surroundings for updates or at least running updates i by i. Otherwise, if yous run across a 500 internal server mistake you lot're suddenly scrambling to figure out which one caused it.

A few ways you tin troubleshoot this is by deactivating all your plugins. Remember, y'all won't lose any data if you simply deactivate a plugin. If you lot can still admission your admin, a quick way to do this is to browse to "Plugins" and select "Deactivate" from the bulk actions carte du jour. This will disable all of your plugins.

Deactivate all plugins
Conciliate all plugins

If this fixes the event yous'll need to find the culprit. Start activating them one by i, reloading the site later on each activation. When you see the 500 internal server fault return, yous've plant the misbehaving plugin. You tin so accomplish out to the plugin programmer for help or mail service a support ticket in the WordPress repository.

If yous can't login to WordPress admin you can FTP into your server and rename your plugins folder to something like plugins_old. Then check your site once again. If it works, and so you will demand to test each plugin one by one. Rename your plugin folder back to "plugins" and and then rename each plugin folder inside of if information technology, one by one, until yous find it. Yous could also try to replicate this on a staging site start.

Rename plugin folder
Rename plugin folder

E'er makes sure your plugins, themes, and WordPress core are upwardly to date. And check to ensure you are running a supported version of PHP. If information technology turns out to be a conflict with bad code in a plugin, you might need to bring in a WordPress developer to gear up the issue.

6. Reinstall WordPress Core

Sometimes WordPress core files can get corrupted, especially on older sites. It's actually quite like shooting fish in a barrel to re-upload merely the core of WordPress without impacting your plugins or themes. We have an in-depth guide with 5 different means to reinstall WordPress. And of course, make sure to take a backup before proceeding. Skip to one of the sections below:

  • How to reinstall WordPress from the WordPress dashboard while preserving existing content
  • How to manually reinstall WordPress via FTP while preserving existing content
  • How to manually reinstall WordPress via WP-CLI while preserving existing content

7. Permissions Error

A permissions error with a file or folder on your server tin can also cause a 500 internal server error to occur. Here are some typical recommendations for permissions when it comes to file and folder permissions in WordPress:

  • All files should exist 644 (-rw-r–r–) or 640.
  • All directories should be 755 (drwxr-xr-x) or 750.
  • No directories should ever be given 777, even upload directories.
  • Hardening: wp-config.php could too be set to 440 or 400 to preclude other users on the server from reading information technology.

See the WordPress Codex article on changing file permissions for a more in-depth explanation.

Y'all tin hands run across your file permissions with an FTP client (equally seen below). Y'all could also accomplish out to your WordPress host support team and enquire them to rapidly GREP file permissions on your folders and files to ensure they're setup properly.

File permissions SFTP
File permissions SFTP

eight. PHP Retention Limit

A 500 internal server error could also exist caused by exhausting the PHP memory limit on your server. Y'all could try increasing the limit. Follow the instructions below on how to change this limit in cPanel, Apache, your php.ini file, and wp-config.php file.

Increase PHP Memory Limit in cPanel

If y'all're running on a host that uses cPanel, you can easily change this from the UI. Under Software click on "Select PHP Version."

Select PHP version
Select PHP version

Click on "Switch to PHP Options."

Switch to PHP options
Switch to PHP options

You can then click on the memory_limit attribute and modify its value. Then click on "Save."

Increase PHP memory limit in cPanel
Increase PHP memory limit in cPanel

Increase PHP Memory Limit in Apache

The .htaccess file is a special hidden file that contains diverse settings you can use to modify the server behavior, right downwards to a directory specific level. First login to your site via FTP or SSH, accept a look at your root directory and see if at that place is a .htaccess file there.

.htaccess file
.htaccess file

If there is you tin can edit that file to add the necessary code for increasing the PHP memory limit. Nearly likely it is fix at 64M or below, you tin endeavor increasing this value.

          php_value memory_limit 128M

Increase PHP Retentiveness Limit in php.ini File

If the above doesn't work for you might attempt editing your php.ini file. Log in to your site via FTP or SSH, go to your site'south root directory and open or create a php.ini file.

php.ini file
php.ini file

If the file was already at that place, search for the three settings and modify them if necessary. If y'all merely created the file, or the settings are nowhere to be found you lot tin paste the code below. You can modify of class the values to meet your needs.

          memory_limit = 128M

Some shared hosts might besides crave that you add the suPHP directive in your .htaccess file for the higher up php.ini file settings to work. To do this, edit your .htaccess file, likewise located at the root of your site, and add the following code towards the top of the file:

          <IfModule mod_suphp.c>  suPHP_ConfigPath /dwelling/yourusername/public_html </IfModule>

If the above didn't work for you lot, it could be that your host has the global settings locked down and instead have it configured to utilize .user.ini files. To edit your .user.ini file, login to your site via FTP or SSH, go to your site'south root directory and open or create a .user.ini file. You tin then paste in the following code:

          memory_limit = 128M

Increase PHP Memory Limit in wp-config.php

The last option is not ane we are fans of, but if all else fails y'all can requite it a go. Get-go, log in to your site via FTP or SSH, and locate your wp-config.php file, which is typically in the root of your site.

wp-config.php file
wp-config.php file

Add the following code to the top of your wp-config.php file:

          ascertain('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M');

You can also ask your host if you're running into memory limit problems. We utilize the Kinsta APM tool and other troubleshooting methods here at Kinsta to assistance clients narrow downwards what plugin, query, or script might be exhausting the limit. Yous can also use your own custom New Relic key from your own license.

Debugging with New Relic
Debugging with New Relic

ix. Problem With Your .htaccess File

Kinsta only uses Nginx, but if you're using a WordPress host that is running Apache, it could very well be that your .htaccess file has a trouble or has become corrupted. Follow the steps below to recreate a new 1 from scratch.

First, log in to your site via FTP or SSH, and rename your .htaccess file to .htaccess_old.

Rename .htaccess file
Rename .htaccess file

Normally to recreate this file you tin can simply re-save your permalinks in WordPress. Nonetheless, if you're in the middle of a 500 internal server error you virtually likely can't access your WordPress admin, and then this isn't an option. Therefore y'all can create a new .htaccess file and input the following contents. Then upload information technology to your server.

          # Brainstorm WordPress <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [50] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [50] </IfModule> # END WordPress

See the WordPress Codex for more examples, such as a default .htaccess file for multisite.

ten. Coding or Syntax Errors in Your CGI/Perl Script

500 errors being caused by errors in CGI and Perl is a lot less common than it used to be. Although information technology's even so worth mentioning, especially for those using cPanel where there are a lot of ane-click CGI scripts even so being used. As AEM on Stack Overflow says:

CGI has been replaced by a vast diversity of web programming technologies, including PHP, diverse Apache extensions like mod_perl, Coffee of various flavors and frameworks including Coffee EE, Struts, Spring, etc, Python-based frameworks like Django, Red on Rails and many other Cerise frameworks, and various Microsoft technologies.

Here are a few tips when working with CGI scripts:

  • When editing, always used a plain text editor, such as Atom, Sublime, or Notepad++. This ensures they remain in ASCII format.
  • Ensure correct permissions of chmod 755 are used on CGI scripts and directories.
  • Upload your CGI scripts in ASCII mode (which you can select in your FTP editor) into the cgi-bin directory on your server.
  • Ostend that the Perl modules yous require for your script are installed and supported.

11. Server Outcome (Check With Your Host)

Finally, considering 500 internal server errors can also occur from PHP timing out or fatal PHP errors with third-political party plugins, yous can always bank check with your WordPress host. Sometimes these errors can be hard to troubleshoot without an adept. Hither are merely a few common examples of some errors that trigger 500 HTTP status codes on the server that might have yous scratching your head.

          PHP message: PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Mistake: Call to undefined role mysql_error()...        
          PHP message: PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Fault: Cannot employ object of blazon WP_Error as array in /www/folder/web/shared/content/plugins/plugin/functions.php:525

Nosotros monitor all client's sites here at Kinsta and are automatically notified when these types of errors occur. This allows us to be pro-agile and offset fixing the event right away. We also apply LXD managed hosts and orchestrated LXC software containers for each site. This means that every WordPress site is housed in its own isolated container, which has all of the software resources required to run it (Linux, Nginx, PHP, MySQL). The resources are 100% private and are not shared with anyone else or even your own sites.

PHP timeouts could also occur from the lack of PHP workers, although typically these cause 504 errors, not 500 errors. These determine how many simultaneous requests your site can handle at a given time. To put it simply, each uncached request for your website is handled by a PHP Worker.

When PHP workers are already busy on a site, they first to build up a queue. Once you've reached your limit of PHP workers, the queue starts to push out older requests which could issue in 500 errors or incomplete requests. Read our in-depth article about PHP workers.

Monitor Your Site

If you're worried about these types of errors happening on your site in the future, you tin can too utilize a tool like updown.io to monitor and notify you lot immediately if they occur. It periodically sends an HTTP Head request to the URL of your pick. You can simply use your homepage. The tool allows you to ready cheque frequencies of:

  • 15 seconds
  • thirty seconds
  • 1 minute
  • 2 minutes
  • v minutes
  • 10 minutes

It will send you an e-mail if and when your site goes down. Here is an example below.

Email notification of 500 error
Email notification of 500 error

This tin exist specially useful if you're trying to debug a faulty plugin or are on a shared host, who tend to overcrowd their servers. This tin give y'all proof of how often your site might really be doing downwards (fifty-fifty during the eye of the night). That's why we always recommend going with a managed WordPress host. Make sure to check out our mail service that explores the pinnacle 9 reasons to choose managed WordPress hosting.

Summary

500 internal server errors are always frustrating, but hopefully, at present you know a few boosted ways to troubleshoot them to speedily get your site back up and running. Remember, typically these types of errors are caused past third-party plugins, fatal PHP errors, database connection issues, issues with your .htaccess file or PHP retentiveness limits, and sometimes PHP timeouts.

Was there anything nosotros missed? Perhaps you take some other tip on troubleshooting 500 internal server errors. If so, let united states of america know below in the comments.

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