What is a 500 Internal Server Error and How to Fix

Introduction

500 Internal Server Erroris a generic error message that appears on the web browser. It is also known as an internal server error, or 504 Gateway timeout. In internet world , it can also be referred as 500 error while fetching resource from the internet due to slow internet connection or unresponsive website or any issue in backend of any Web application.

Table of Contents

Pre-Requisistes

Make sure you have a Valid application hosted in any of VPS server like digitalocean , vultr or any shared hosting like hostinger or a2hosting .

What is HTP 500 Server Error

You may have seen this error when trying to access your website:

The above 500 Internal Server Error is an HTTP error code that means the site mentione din the url , application, or network has received an abnormal error response from a web server, commonly referred to as a web server.

The 500 Internal Server Error flag is usually returned by the server when it encounters any of the codes that shouldn't happen outside of its actual processes. This will usually happen whenever there is some kind of human error from one or more of the involved party involved in the system's development and delivery process.

A 500 internal server error is a generic HTTP status code that means that the server encountered an error while handling the request.

The most common causes of this problem include:

1. Too many redirects or page redirects (usually on the same domain). This can be fixed by adding more domains to your web host's list of allowed domains, or by changing how it's configured in their control panel.

2. A software issue on their end—it could be something as simple as a broken plugin or outdated version of PHP installed in an Apache installation; or perhaps they just need someone who knows what they're doing over at Rackspace!

Is It Really an Issue

If you are seeing this error, it's important to determine if the problem is on your end. Is it your computer that is having trouble communicating with the server? Is there something wrong with the network connection and/or router settings? Is it a problem with the server itself (IIS or tomcat or nginx )? What about internet speed or bandwidth? These are all things that could cause an issue with this error message, so make sure you check them before moving forward in troubleshooting any issues related to 500 Internal Server Error

How to Troubleshoot 500 Internal Server Error

You may be able to fix the 500 internal server error in a few minutes using basic troubleshooting techniques.

1. Find out what is causing the 500 internal server error.

2. Find out how to fix the 500 internal server error.

3. Find out how to prevent the 500 internal server error

Here are few of the common troubleshooting techniques we can follow .

• The first thing that you should do is check your server configuration and make sure that all of the correct settings are set up properly. This includes checking if there are any errors in your error logs, which can be checked using the following commands grep -i "500 Internal Server Error" /var/log/messages* cat /var/log/error_log

• Database Issue might also cause a possible 500 internal server error . If you are using mysql database make sure you have correct user and permissions enabled . Make sure your database is accessible from a Public IP .

• Make sure the user with which you are running application in your VPS server wheather is digitalocean , aws or Vultr has correct permission to write to the directory . The user who is running the service has not been given access by an administrator. This means that you need to contact an administrator who can modify the permission for you.

• Apache Htaccess .If you are using apache as your web server , one of the most common cause of this error is that your .htaccess file has been set to AllowOverride None, which disables all sorts of functionality.

If you are using Apache, you can fix this by adding these two lines to your .htaccess file:

<Files "dynamic/php-files/*"> Order allow,deny Allow from all </Files> 
<FilesMatch "^(php-files|\.php$)"> Order allow,deny Deny from all </FilesMatch>

• Wordpress Themes - If you are using wordpress a possible cause of 500 server error could be outdated themes and plugins or themes and plugins intalled from unknown and unwanted sources . We can fix this by updating our themes or paid plugins and themes .

• Most of the times we have seen in wordpress the themes and plugins used might not be compatible with the php version . You can reach out to your hosting support if you are using a shared hosting or else you can switch php version by upgrading or downgrading php version .

• Php modules compatability should be checked if you are using php

• Nodejs Modules can also lead to 500 server error in nodejs based applications . Please verify the compatibility of the npm modules before installing it.

• External APi or Services dependency - Calling any external api or resources might throw an internal server if the external resource or api is down and not able to serve any requests .

• In Case of nginx make sure you run ```nginx -t`` if any configuration changes are done . We will discuss a bit more in detail on resolving and fixing internal server error in ngix .

How to Fix Internal Server Error In Nginx

A number of reasons can cause an error to occur during the request and response process.

Internal Server Error in nginx

1. A timeout error occurred while waiting for the request but the server configured might not be responding .So check the server configured is able to serve request and accessible via public ip.

2. A syntax error occurred while parsing the nginx configuration. Please verify nginx configurations .

3. An invalid option was supplied to a command, for example: ‘-o’ or ‘–onion’.

4. The server denied access from your IP address (check if you are allowed to access this site).

5. There is not enough memory available to handle this request (check if you have enough RAM and swap space).

6. The server could not identify a valid certificate to use with this connection (check if your CA certificates are installed).

If you're experiencing this issue on a VPS or dedicated server, it's probably because you've run out of disk space and need more space in order to accommodate all of your sites' files and programs.

Conclusion

The problem might be due to a misconfiguration in your server or a software issue. It is important to fix this issue as soon as possible so that you can solve it and run your website smoothly. If you're not sure what could be causing such an error, then we recommend trying some of the below methods that have been proven effective for fixing 500 Internal Server Error.