You must have attempted to access a specific website when you received a 500 Internal Server Error. As a user, you can ignore it, but as a website administrator, you must remove it as quickly as possible.
The frequent incidence of 500 internal server problems is detrimental to your company’s reputation and will cause customers to lose faith in your brand. In addition to harming your reputation, it will lower your search engine rankings. Therefore, it is advisable to avoid this incident and properly understand how to troubleshoot it.
What Is An HTTP 500 Internal Server Error?
The 500 Internal Server Error is described as follows by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF):
The 500 (Internal Server Error) status code indicates that the server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request.
Although the 500 error code might appear in various ways, it typically appears together with the words “internal server problem” or both. This error, a component of the website HTTP specification, can be seen on any computer, mobile device, and web browser.
Types of 500 Internal Server Error
- 500.0: Module or ISAPI error occurred.
- 500.11: The application shut down on the web server.
- 500.12: The application is busy rebooting on the web server.
- 500.13: The web server is busy.
- 500.15: Direct retrieval for global.asax is not permitted.
- 500.19: Configuration data is invalid.
- 500.21: Module is not recognized.
- 500.22: An ASP.NET HTTP modules configuration doesn’t apply in Managed Pipeline mode.
- 500.23: An ASP.NET HTTP handlers configuration doesn’t apply in Managed Pipeline mode.
- 500.24: An ASP.NET impersonation configuration does not apply in Managed Pipeline mode.
- 500.50: A rewrite error occurred during RQ_BEGIN_REQUEST notification handling. A configuration or inbound rule execution error 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. The rule is configured to be executed before the output user cache updates.
- 500.100: Internal ASP error.
What Are The Common Causes Of HTTP Error 500 Internal Server Error?
A server issue with the website generally results in a 500 internal server error. This indicates that there is a problem or short fault with the programming of the website.
Broken or corrupted .Htaccess File
Important server instructions can be found in .htaccess files, which are text files. These commands instruct your software to enable or disable particular features.
Error with permissions.
File protection comes with permission errors. Bugs, user errors, or networking issues can all result in permissions errors. This error typically indicates that the user is not authorized to perform the action they are attempting.
Poorly Coded Third-Party Plugins Or Themes
You might add a third-party theme or plugin to your website to boost user features and functionality. These plugins may be excellent for your website but may affect its performance, security, and bug count.
The Php Memory Limit Is Exceeded
HTML contains PHP, a server-side programming language. PHP manages content, databases, track sessions, and more.
Your hosting account has a limit on how much memory can be used by each PHP process. An HTTP 500 error could appear if a website requires more RAM than this.
How Does 500 Internal Server Error Effects Your Search Engine Ranking?
Google consistently aims to give users a positive experience. The website’s rating will undoubtedly suffer if numerous visitors face the issue at various times.
Website outage that lasts for a prolonged period, or non-availability, might hurt your search engine rankings.
You may check how many visitors encountered the problem using Google Analytics and Search Console. The Google crawler regularly crawls the website. During that crawl, it was discovered that the website is not constantly accessible, which will hurt the rankings.
How to fix a 500 internal server (HTTP 500 Error Message)?
- Troubleshoot By Reloading The Page
- Clear Your Browser Cache
- Use A Plugin To Identify The Issue. (500 Error Code)
- Ensure the PHP setup is configured correctly.
- Check Your Plugins And Themes
- Reinstall WordPress Core
- Problem With .Htaccess (File execution error)
- Refresh The Page Or Come Back Later
1. Troubleshoot By Reloading The Page
When you get a 500 internal server error, your best bet is to wait a minute. The host or server may be overcrowded. This may cause the 500 status code error in websites.
- Checking the Downdetector website is another option.
- This website will let you know if there is a problem on your end or if the site is down.
- This kind of tool examines the HTTP status code that the server returns.
- This could happen right away when you upgrade a WordPress theme or plugin.
- Usually, hosts with improper setups experience this. They immediately experience a brief timeout as a result. But things normally work themselves out in a few seconds.
2. Clear Your Browser Cache
- Open the Google Chrome browser and go to the Three Dots icon in the upper-right corner of your browser window.
- Locate the More Tools menu item, then choose the Clear Browsing Data option from the submenu.
- You can also use CTRL + SHIFT + DEL as a hotkey combination. A new tab with a Clear Browsing Data popup window will open in Chrome.
- Only the Cached pictures and files box should be selected.
- You can delete your browsing history or select a full cache cleanup that includes cookies and other site data.
- To clear the browser cache, choose a period.
- To clear your cache, click the Clear data option at the end. Your Chrome browser’s cache is now empty.
- Check if this fixes 500 Internal Server Error or not
3. Use A Plugin To Identify The Issue. (500 Error Code)
If WordPress is the platform for your website and you are familiar with its debugging procedures. To assist you in determining the problem with your server, think about adding a plugin.
The debug plugin WP Debugging aids in pinpointing the specific issue with your site, allowing for a quicker fix.
4. Ensure the PHP setup is configured correctly.
Consider adding timeout controls or error handling to your script if a PHP timeout causes the problem.
A script, such as a PHP or CGI script, won’t be able to run if a file or folder containing that script has the incorrect rights. Make sure your server’s permissions are correctly set by checking them.
5. Check Your Plugins And Themes
Themes and plugins from unofficial sources might easily result in 500 internal server issues. The issue should frequently appear immediately following an update or new installation.
- Deactivating all of your plugins is one way to solve this problem.
- If you disable a plugin, you won’t lose any data.
- If you can still access your admin, navigating to “Plugins” and choosing “Deactivate” from the bulk actions menu will accomplish this quickly.
- If this resolves the problem, you must identify the offender. Start turning them on one at a time, refreshing the page between them.
- The plugin creator can then be contacted for assistance, or you can submit a support ticket.
- After renaming your plugin folder to “plugins,” rename each plugin folder inside. Another option is first to try to duplicate this in a staging area.
- Ensure your core, themes, and plugins are always up to date.
- Verify that the PHP version you are using is supported.
6. Reinstall WordPress Core
WordPress core files can occasionally become corrupt, especially on older websites. Re-uploading the WordPress core is simple and won’t affect your plugins or themes.
- Navigate to Dashboard Updates in the sidebar of your WordPress dashboard.
- Press the Reinstall button.
- WordPress will instantly download and reinstall the most recent version when you press the button.
- When you update WordPress from the dashboard, you are essentially just manually re-running the standard Update procedure that WordPress employs.
7. Problem With Your .Htaccess (File execution error)
Your .htaccess file’s incorrect coding or poor structure could cause the 500 internal problems you’re experiencing. You may control how long resources should be kept in a browser’s cache by using the .htaccess file.
- Access your website’s files using FTP/SFTP or a file manager like cPanel to find your .htaccess file.
- Most likely, the file will be found in your public HTML directory.
- Your server will likely, by default, conceal this file from view. Therefore you’ll need to turn on hidden files to access it.
- An HTTP 500 internal server error can also result from .htaccess and custom script coding problems.
8. Refresh The Page Or Come Back Later
If the problem is on the server, reload the URL to see whether the development team has addressed the problem after a few minutes or up to an hour.
If the problem is a momentary loading one, refreshing the page can help. Reload the page and observe the results before attempting anything else on this list.
Conclusion
A common error message is HTTP 500 internal server error. It addresses unforeseen problems that don’t fit within current error codes. Due to the wide variety of server-side problems that can generate HTTP 500 errors, they are challenging to debug. The best solutions to the “500 internal server error” problem are listed above. Follow all of them and fix this error.