General help: HTTP 500 Internal Server Errors

[sozzled]

This information is provided for all users of the Joomla! forum. It is general information only and the advice may or may not solve every situation involving HTTP 500 Internal Server Error problems that people encounter.

If you use Google you will probably be overwhelmed by the number of references to "HTTP 500", "500 error" or (to give it its full name) "HTTP 500 Internal Server Error". For example, https://google.com/search?q=HTTP+500+Internal+Server+Error. Even if you add the work "Joomla" to your search, the results are almost endless.

Even though the forum rules state:

Try to summarise the problem briefly in the subject, and elaborate in the message itself.

Using the term "500 error" in the subject or in the message is not an elaboration of the problem. Even if the only text you see on your website are the words "500 error" this does not help us to help you. The whole problem, in attempting to diagnose these kinds of errors, is that it requires extra effort on your part to find where the problem is coming from and to use that information, tell us what you've discovered, so that we can help.

In short, we don't know what you know. Or, worse, we don't know what you may not know.

It is unusual—it is uncommon but not impossible—for people to get these kinds of errors on their very first installation of Joomla! But, just because it's unlikely for this to occur, people should not immediately jump to the conclusion that Joomla is the cause of these problems. The problems can occur because there are issues with the webhosting platform (for example, insufficient memory or disk space); those issue are outside our control: those issues are the results of the choices you made.

1. Enable Joomla debug mode. If you have never heard of Joomla debug mode then research it. https://google.com/search?q=how+to+enable+deb ... +in+joomla

2. Set the error reporting level accordingly. Errors are sometimes concealed if you have reduced the threshold for seeing errors. https://google.com/search?q=error+reporting+level+in+joomla

3. Use the Forum Post Assistant. The Forum Post Assistant is not part of Joomla. It is a standalone utility that has been available for many years. It was designed to help you to find out more about how you built your website and to give us information, via the forum, that will help us to help you. https://forumpostassistant.github.io/docs/

These three things will help to identify the cause of the problem (or problems) you may be having. There is no one specific cause of "500 errors". They can come from badly-written third-party extensions, from problems with your webhost or from real "bugs" in Joomla ... but the last-mentioned situation is fairly unlikely.

So, the next time you see "500 error" (and nothing else), please read the tips I've written here: (1) Enable Joomla debug mode, (2) set the error reporting level (to "Maximum" or "Development"), and (3) use the Forum Post Assistant.

[waarnemer]

tip 4, when none af the above work:

Since a status server 500 error is a status generated by the web server (ie Apache) not being able to render the request, check the Apache error log. You will find hints towards the cause of the issue.
nginx and iis will have similar (if you chose to run one of these flavours)

[Webdongle]

tip #5
Check for changes made between the time of no error and the error.
e.g.
What did you do last time you were in Host/Joomla admin?
Ask your Host if they made any changes