The dreaded 500 internal server error. Information technology always seems to come up at the near inopportune time and you lot're of a sudden left scrambling to figure out how to get your WordPress site back online. Trust us, we've all been at that place. Other errors that behave similarly that you might have also seen include the frightening error establishing a database connection and the dreaded white screen of death. Merely from the moment your site goes down, you're losing visitors and customers. Not to mention it simply looks bad for your brand.

Today we're going to dive into the 500 internal server mistake and walk you through some ways to become your site back online chop-chop. Read more below almost what causes this error and what you can exercise to preclude information technology in the future.

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

Check Out Our Ultimate Guide to Fixing the 500 Internal Server Error

What is a 500 Internal Server Error?

The Internet Engineering Task Forcefulness (IETF) defines the 500 Internal Server Fault as:

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

When yous 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 resource (PHP, HTML, CSS, etc.) forth with an HTTP header. The HTTP as well includes what they call an HTTP status code. A status lawmaking is a way to notify you nigh the condition of the request. Information technology could be a 200 status code which means "Everything is OK" or a 500 status code which ways something has gone wrong.

In that location are a lot of different types of 500 status mistake 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 asking(RFC 7231, department 6.half-dozen.1).

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

500 Internal Server Error Variations

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

    • "500 Internal Server Mistake"
    • "HTTP 500"
    • "Internal Server Mistake"
    • "HTTP 500 – Internal Server Error"
    • "500 Error"
    • "HTTP Error 500"
    • "500 – Internal Server Mistake"
    • "500 Internal Server Mistake. Sad something went incorrect."
    • "500. That'south an mistake. There was an error. Please effort again later on. That's all we know."
    • "The website cannot brandish the folio – HTTP 500."
    • "Is currently unable to handle this asking. HTTP ERROR 500."

You might also meet this message accompanying information technology:

The server encountered an internal fault or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Delight contact the server administrator, [e-mail protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the fault. More data virtually this mistake may be bachelor in the server error log.

Internal Server Error
Internal Server Error

Other times, you might simply meet a blank white screen. When dealing with 500 internal server errors, this is actually quite common in browsers like Firefox and Safari.

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

Bigger brands might even take their own custom 500 internal server error messages, such as this i from Airbnb.

Airbnb 500 internal server error
Airbnb 500 internal server error

Here is some other 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 safe from 500 internal server errors.

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

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

  • 500.0 – Module or ISAPI error occurred.
  • 500.11 – Awarding is shutting downward on the spider web server.
  • 500.12 – Awarding is busy restarting on the web server.
  • 500.thirteen – Web server is too busy.
  • 500.15 – Direct requests for global.asax are not immune.
  • 500.19 – Configuration data is invalid.
  • 500.21 – Module not recognized.
  • 500.22 – An ASP.NET httpModules configuration does non apply in Managed Pipeline mode.
  • 500.23 – An ASP.NET httpHandlers configuration does not apply in Managed Pipeline mode.
  • 500.24 – An ASP.NET impersonation configuration does not apply in Managed Pipeline mode.
  • 500.l – A rewrite error occurred during RQ_BEGIN_REQUEST notification handling. A configuration or entering dominion 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 treatment. An outbound dominion execution occurred.
  • 500.53 – A rewrite error occurred during RQ_RELEASE_REQUEST_STATE notification handling. An outbound rule execution fault occurred. The rule is configured to exist executed before the output user cache gets updated.
    500.100 – Internal ASP error.

500 Errors Touch on on SEO

Unlike 503 errors, which are used for WordPress maintenance mode and tell Google to cheque back at a later fourth dimension, a 500 error can have a negative bear upon on SEO if not fixed correct away. If your site is just down for say 10 minutes and information technology's existence crawled consistently a lot of times the crawler volition merely get the folio delivered from cache. Or Google might not even have a chance to re-crawl it earlier it's back up. In this scenario, you're completely fine.

Notwithstanding, if the site is downward for an extended period of time, say half-dozen+ hours, then Google might see the 500 mistake equally a site level result that needs to be addressed. This could impact your rankings. If you're worried about echo 500 errors you should effigy out why they are happening to begin with. Some of the solutions below can help.

How to Gear up the 500 Internal Server Error

Where should you commencement troubleshooting when you run into a 500 internal server error on your WordPress site? Sometimes you lot might not even know where to begin. Typically 500 errors are on the server itself, simply from our feel, these errors originate from ii things, the get-go isuser error (client-side issue), and the 2d is that at that place is a problem with the server. So we'll dive into a little of both.

Check out these common causes and ways to fix the 500 internal server error and go back upwards and running in no time.

one. Try Reloading the Page

This might seem a lilliputian obvious to some, but 1 of the easiest and offset things yous should try when encountering a 500 internal server error is to merely 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 right dorsum. While y'all're waiting, you could also quickly try a dissimilar browser to dominion that out every bit an issue.

Some other thing you can do is to paste the website into downforeveryoneorjustme.com. This website will tell you if the site is downwards or if information technology'southward a trouble on your side. A tool like this checks the HTTP status lawmaking that is returned from the server. If it's anything other than a 200 "Everything is OK" then it volition return a down indication.

downforeveryoneorjustme
downforeveryoneorjustme

Nosotros've as well noticed that sometimes this can occur immediately after you lot update a plugin or theme on your WordPress site. Typically this is on hosts that aren't set upward properly. What happens is they experience a temporary timeout right afterwards. Notwithstanding, things ordinarily resolve themselves in a couple of seconds and therefore refreshing is all you need to do.

2. Articulate Your Browser Cache

Clearing your browser enshroud is always another good troubleshooting step before diving into deeper debugging on your site. Beneath are instructions on how to articulate enshroud in the various browsers:

  • How to Strength Refresh a Single Page for All Browsers
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Google Chrome
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Mozilla Firefox
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Safari
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Internet Explorer
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Microsoft Edge
  • How to Clear Browser Cache for Opera

3. Cheque Your Server Logs

Yous should as well take advantage of your mistake logs. If you're a Kinsta client, you can easily see errors in the log viewer in the MyKinsta dashboard. This can assistance you rapidly narrow downwardly the issue, especially if information technology's resulting from a plugin on your site.

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

If your host doesn't have a logging tool, y'all 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 ); define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', imitation );

The logs are typically located in the /wp-content directory. Others, similar here at Kinsta might have a dedicated folder chosen "logs".

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

You can besides check the log files in Apache and Nginx, which are commonly located here:

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

If you're a Kinsta customer you lot can also take advantage of our analytics tool to get a breakup of the total number of 500 errors and run into how often and when they are occurring. This tin help you troubleshoot if this is an ongoing upshot, or perhaps something that has resolved itself.

Response analysis 500 error breakdown
Response analysis 500 mistake breakdown

If the 500 mistake is displaying because of a fatal PHP error, you can also try enabling PHP error reporting. Just add the following code to the file throwing the error. Typically y'all tin can narrow downwards the file in the console tab of Google Chrome DevTools.

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

And you might need to as well modify your php.ini file with the following:

          display_errors = on

four. Mistake Establishing a Database Connectedness

500 internal server errors tin can also occur from a database connection error. Depending upon your browser you might run across dissimilar errors. But both will generate a 500 HTTP status code regardless in your server logs.

Below is an example of what an "mistake establishing a database connection" message looks like your browser. The entire page is blank because no data tin be retrieved to render the folio, as the connection is not working properly. Not only does this break the front-end of your site, simply information technology will too prevent y'all from accessing your WordPress dashboard.

Example of error establishing a database connection
Example of error establishing a database connexion

So why exactly does this happen? Well, here are a few mutual reasons below.

  • The most common issue is that yourdatabase login credentials are incorrect. Your WordPress site uses dissever 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 go corrupted. This tin can be due to a missing or individually corrupted table, or perhaps some information was deleted by accident.
  • You may have corrupt files in your WordPress installation. This can even happen sometimes due to hackers.
  • Issues with your database server. A number of things could exist wrong on the spider web hosts end, such as the database being overloaded from a traffic spike or unresponsive from as well many concurrent connections. This is actually quite common with shared hosts as they are utilizing the aforementioned resource for a lot of users on the aforementioned servers.

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

five. Check Your Plugins and Themes

Third-party plugins and themes can easily cause 500 internal server errors. We've seen all types cause them here at Kinsta, from slider plugins to advertizing rotator plugins. A lot of times yous should meet the error immediately later on installing something new or running an update. This is 1 reason why nosotros ever recommend utilizing a staging environment for updates or at least running updates one past one. Otherwise, if you run into a 500 internal server mistake you're all of a sudden scrambling to figure out which one caused it.

A few means you can troubleshoot this is past deactivating all your plugins. Remember, y'all won't lose any data if you simply deactivate a plugin. If you tin still admission your admin, a quick fashion to do this is to browse to "Plugins" and select "Deactivate" from the bulk deportment menu. This will disable all of your plugins.

Deactivate all plugins
Deactivate all plugins

If this fixes the issue you'll need to find the culprit. Start activating them 1 by one, reloading the site later each activation. When you come across the 500 internal server mistake render, you've establish the misbehaving plugin. Y'all can then reach out to the plugin developer for aid or post a support ticket in the WordPress repository.

If you can't login to WordPress admin you lot can FTP into your server and rename your plugins binder to something like plugins_old. And so bank check your site again. If it works, then yous will need to exam each plugin one by one. Rename your plugin folder dorsum to "plugins" and and then rename each plugin folder within of if it, ane past one, until you find it. You could likewise endeavor to replicate this on a staging site first.

Rename plugin folder
Rename plugin binder

Always makes sure your plugins, themes, and WordPress core are upwards to engagement. And bank check to ensure you are running a supported version of PHP. If it turns out to be a conflict with bad code in a plugin, you might need to bring in a WordPress programmer to gear up the issue.

6. Reinstall WordPress Cadre

Sometimes WordPress core files can get corrupted, especially on older sites. It's actually quite piece of cake to re-upload just the cadre of WordPress without impacting your plugins or themes. Nosotros take an in-depth guide with 5 different ways to reinstall WordPress. And of course, make sure to take a backup before proceeding. Skip to i 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 mistake to occur. Here are some typical recommendations for permissions when it comes to file and folder permissions in WordPress:

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

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

Yous can easily meet your file permissions with an FTP client (as seen below). You could too accomplish out to your WordPress host back up squad 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 mistake could as well be caused past exhausting the PHP memory limit on your server. You could effort increasing the limit. Follow the instructions below on how to modify this limit in cPanel, Apache, your php.ini file, and wp-config.php file.

Increase PHP Retention Limit in cPanel

If you're running on a host that uses cPanel, you tin hands change this from the UI. Nether 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

Yous can then click on the memory_limit attribute and change its value. Then click on "Save."

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

Increase PHP Retention Limit in Apache

The .htaccess file is a special subconscious file that contains various settings you tin employ to change the server behavior, right downward to a directory specific level. First login to your site via FTP or SSH, take a await at your root directory and meet if there is a .htaccess file there.

.htaccess file
.htaccess file

If there is you tin edit that file to add the necessary lawmaking for increasing the PHP memory limit. Virtually likely it is prepare at 64M or below, you can try increasing this value.

          php_value memory_limit 128M

Increase PHP Memory 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 up or create a php.ini file.

php.ini file
php.ini file

If the file was already there, search for the three settings and modify them if necessary. If you just created the file, or the settings are nowhere to exist found you lot can paste the code below. You can modify of course the values to meet your needs.

          memory_limit = 128M

Some shared hosts might besides require that you add the suPHP directive in your .htaccess file for the above php.ini file settings to work. To practise this, edit your .htaccess file, as well located at the root of your site, and add the following code towards the top of the file:

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

If the higher up didn't work for you, it could be that your host has the global settings locked down and instead have information technology configured to utilize .user.ini files. To edit your .user.ini file, login to your site via FTP or SSH, go to your site'due south root directory and open or create a .user.ini file. You lot can then paste in the post-obit lawmaking:

          memory_limit = 128M

Increase PHP Memory Limit in wp-config.php

The last selection is not one nosotros are fans of, simply if all else fails you tin give it a go. Offset, 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 post-obit code to the pinnacle of your wp-config.php file:

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

You can also inquire your host if you lot're running into retentiveness limit issues. We apply the Kinsta APM tool and other troubleshooting methods here at Kinsta to help clients narrow down what plugin, query, or script might be exhausting the limit. You can too utilize your ain custom New Relic fundamental from your own license.

Debugging with New Relic
Debugging with New Relic

nine. Trouble 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 problem or has get corrupted. Follow the steps beneath to recreate a new ane from scratch.

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

Rename .htaccess file
Rename .htaccess file

Ordinarily to recreate this file you tin can simply re-relieve your permalinks in WordPress. Even so, if you're in the middle of a 500 internal server mistake you near probable tin can't access your WordPress admin, so this isn't an selection. Therefore you tin create a new .htaccess file and input the following contents. Then upload information technology to your server.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a few tips when working with CGI scripts:

  • When editing, e'er 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.
  • Confirm that the Perl modules you lot require for your script are installed and supported.

11. Server Issue (Cheque With Your Host)

Finally, because 500 internal server errors can also occur from PHP timing out or fatal PHP errors with third-party plugins, you can e'er cheque with your WordPress host. Sometimes these errors can be difficult to troubleshoot without an skilful. Here are just a few mutual examples of some errors that trigger 500 HTTP condition codes on the server that might have yous scratching your head.

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

Nosotros monitor all client'due south sites here at Kinsta and are automatically notified when these types of errors occur. This allows us to be pro-active and start fixing the issue correct away. Nosotros also utilize 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 information technology (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, non 500 errors. These determine how many simultaneous requests your site can handle at a given time. To put information technology simply, each uncached request for your website is handled by a PHP Worker.

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

Monitor Your Site

If y'all're worried almost these types of errors happening on your site in the futurity, you can also utilize a tool like updown.io to monitor and notify you immediately if they occur. It periodically sends an HTTP Head request to the URL of your pick. Yous tin can only use your homepage. The tool allows yous to fix check frequencies of:

  • 15 seconds
  • xxx seconds
  • 1 minute
  • two minutes
  • five minutes
  • ten minutes

Information technology will send you an electronic mail if and when your site goes downward. Here is an example below.

Email notification of 500 error
E-mail notification of 500 error

This can be especially 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 you proof of how often your site might actually be doing down (fifty-fifty during the middle of the night). That's why we always recommend going with a managed WordPress host. Brand sure to check out our mail that explores the top 9 reasons to choose managed WordPress hosting.

Summary

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

Was there annihilation we missed? Peradventure you lot take another tip on troubleshooting 500 internal server errors. If and so, let u.s. know below in the comments.

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