page not found (404) is instead shown as 500 error

[VThomas]

Most, but not all of my J3 sites are returning a 500 error when it should be a 404 error. I have custom 404 pages on all my sites. This began sometime in 2017, as my best guess. I don't routinely check this, but can say earlier in 2017 things were working OK.

Since this problem does not occur on all my J3 sites, I don't think it a change to the server. I exchanged my akeeba htaccess file for the joomla htaccess file, to test that possibility, but get the same result.

Can anyone suggest where I should look for the cause of 404 errors not being seen as 404, instead returning 500 errors? Thanks, Vicky

[Prowebdesign]

Hi,

500 errors is a status for unexpected errors. It is a server side error message common causes of this are eg. misconfigured .htaccess files or PHP errors, which you can check in the File php_error.log on your Webhost. You can find the php_error.log file in the /log/ directory - this directory can be found on the same level as your /html/ directory.

[mojito]

I am getting this as well, I am using nginx. I have a server block that seems ok. And also this looks like it has happened semi recently for me latter part of 2017...I will see if I can work out where the php error log might reside.