(HTTP 500 Internal Server Error) - Login Administration area

[mcampos]

Hi there...

i have done a clean install of the server as follows

Server:
windows server 2008 + iis 7
php 5.2.6 nts - FastCGI
mysql 5.1.29
mysql gui tools 5.0.r14
joomla 1.5.8

iis7:
joomla installed in a virtual directory (intranet)

permissions: read/execute/write to 'intranet' folder and all sub-folders

accessing http://localhost/intranet joomla works fine
when i try to access the administration end of joomla it gives me the login page
and after login in with admin account it gives me a (HTTP 500 Internal Server Error) page

anyone can help me

best regards!!

[stiggypop]

I have had exactly the same problem and I think I know what the problem is but don't know how to fix it. If you turn HTTP Friendly Messages off in Internet Explorer you will get an error similar to this:

Code: Select all

PHP Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\******\libraries\simplepie\simplepie.php on line 6601 PHP Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to feeds.joomla.org:80 (php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. ) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\******\libraries\simplepie\simplepie.php on line 6601

If your case is the same as mine, this will be due to the fact that your Joomla! site is sat behind a firewall (or ISA server) hence your website cannot authenticate to allow direct access to the internet.

It would seem that in version 1.5.8 the Joomla! team incorporated a security feed into the administration backend and it is this that is causing the problem.

The way I see it, we need to be able to either disable the backend access to the security feed or apply some sort of fix to fsockopen within PHP to allow access through the firewall.

Any suggestions please?

Stig

[stiggypop]

Has anyone else been able to replicate this? I am really struggling.

Thanks in advance.

[himself73]

The same thing here.
Joomla works fine but access to the backend admin area gives me Internal server error 500.

[stiggypop]

Just let you guys know, I deleted my Joomla install and re-intsalled and it worked fine. The only thing that changed in between was that I set the ISA server to alllow any connections without having to authenticate.

I'm not sure if this is the same in your environments?

[vseven]

I'm having this issue but a fresh install did not fix it. Deleted the site completely, redid the setup and told it to drop all tables.

It started happening initially after I enabled LDAP authentication. I thought deleting the site and wiping out the database would fix it but it didnt...which doesn't make a lot of sense. Same issue as above, site works fine otherwise just can't log in as admin and do anything.

EDIT: If I log into the admin page locally on the network (localhost) I get a HTTP 500 server error. If I log in from outside our network (FQDN) I get this:

PHP Warning: fsockopen() [<a href='function.fsockopen'>function.fsockopen</a>]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\
(mysite)\libraries\simplepie\simplepie.php on line 6601
PHP Warning: fsockopen() [<a href='function.fsockopen'>function.fsockopen</a>]: unable to connect to feeds.joomla.org:80 (php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. ) in D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\(mysite)\libraries\simplepie\simplepie.php on line 6601


Any ideas? Don't think its the LDAP thing because a fresh install should have reset that. I completely wiped out PHP, Joomla, and FastCGI and reinstalled them all with the same issue.

[vseven]

More information. This seems to be a issue with the Admin page not being able to get to the Joomla feeds. I put the following line into my servers "hosts" file (c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts):

127.0.0.1 feeds.joomla.org

To purposely route the feeds link back to itself to see if this was the issue and the error message changed to:

PHP Notice: A feed could not be found at http://feeds.joomla.org/JoomlaSecurityNews in D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\(mysite)\libraries\simplepie\simplepie.php on line 1520

So I'm thinking the fact that it can't get to the Feeds page is whats preventing the admin screen from working, which makes no sense....why would it "require" the feeds page. So I did more searching and found that the feeds server's IP address is 74.125.47.121 (currently at least...) and I update my host file and add a static route out our network onto the internet to get to this address.

The Admin page now works fine.

So for whatever reason the web server HAS TO be able to get to feeds.joomla.org or you cannot login. This makes no sense and something needs to be changed to prevent this but I'm not good enough with PHP to tell you what to change. If you allow your web server to get to feeds.joomla.org it should work fine. What a PITA figuring this one out.

Edit: If enabling access to the feeds site isn't a option you can set your PHP error reporting down from all to all except notices like so:

error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE

This also gets you through this problem (and a bunch of others you may run into that arn't hard errors).

[jlilio]

Any ideas? Don't think its the LDAP thing because a fresh install should have reset that. I completely wiped out PHP, Joomla, and FastCGI and reinstalled them all with the same issue.

It isn't a Joomla! issue. It is LDAP... I have the same issue both with GLPI and two Joomla! sites in our intranet when I migrated them from Ubuntu Hardy/Apache to Windows/IIS.

Solution:
1) locate your php.ini file and search for this line: ;extension=php_ldap.dll
2) simply uncomment it by removing the ";" thus it becomes extension=php_ldap.dll
3) save the file and exit
4) restart your web server (i.e., IIS)

[vseven]

Already got it fixed, see above. Also that wasn't my issue, the extension was already uncommented in my case.

[A_J_A]

So how can we turn this feed off so internet access isn't needed from a Joomla machine? (Example - for an intranet CMS)

[surflientje]

maybe a stupid question.
but i have the same issues. Deleting my joomla and restoring an older backup did not work. Installing my backup on another domain/hosting didn't even solve it
I had just changed a few things, my site was working perfect for a hour. and when i was just adding an event the problems begun.

So does anyone know how this can just happen, so i can prevent it from happening again and save a lot of time trying to restore my site, which isn't working so far.
As far as i know nothing changed on the server in that day..

also i only have the problem when login in and selecting a menu item. without loging in the site works fine, how can that be?

please advise how to solve this best, i am desperate to finish my website without errors

thx

[RobKing]

Well, until this bug is fixed, I can't even demo it internally at my site because we're all behind an ISA server. I've tried all the fixes suggested above and none of them worked.

[RobKing]

Here's how I disabled the security newsfeed:

1. Comment out lines 1519 and 1520 in /libraries/simplepie/simplepie.php

2. Login to the admin console and go into Extensions -> Module Manager -> Administrator and disable the "Joomla! Security Newsfeed" module.

3. Uncomment lines 1519 and 1520 in /libraries/simplepie/simplepie.php

[stephersiu]

Hey guys, just spent an hour trying to fix this so I registered to the joomla.org forum to post my solution

Previously, I had changed the permissions for the /administrator folder to 777 because when I used the install module extension it kept giving me errors.

This error only came up when I moved my site over from one hosting service to another. Just packed up all my files in a zip and unzipped it in public_html folder of new host and moved my sql database over.

I changed the /administrator folder back to 755 and everything is peachy now. Along the way when I was looking for a solution to the 500 Internal Server Error problem I also changed index.php, administrator/index.php, and administrator/index2.php to 755 permissions... but that alone didnt fix it until I did 755 on the administrator folder.

Hope this helps,

Stephen

[grvulture]

755 "administrator" directory permissions is the solution! Stephen, YOU'RE THE MAN!

thanks for taking the time to make an account just to post the solution! You save my day!

[stephersiu]

Glad to know I helped Although I'd still like to understand why it happened... I guess that's another question for another day haha

Stephen

[Jonadabe]

Hey guys, just spent an hour trying to fix this so I registered to the joomla.org forum to post my solution

Previously, I had changed the permissions for the /administrator folder to 777 because when I used the install module extension it kept giving me errors.

This error only came up when I moved my site over from one hosting service to another. Just packed up all my files in a zip and unzipped it in public_html folder of new host and moved my sql database over.

I changed the /administrator folder back to 755 and everything is peachy now. Along the way when I was looking for a solution to the 500 Internal Server Error problem I also changed index.php, administrator/index.php, and administrator/index2.php to 755 permissions... but that alone didnt fix it until I did 755 on the administrator folder.

Hope this helps,

Stephen

Stephen you are the MAN. Thank you very mutch!!!!
I don't have it installed on IIS, but still my hosting company moved our site and I got this http 500 error everytime I would login. The frontpage was fine, I could login. But at the backend in administrator I got always that error. When I changed the permission everything is fine. Thank you so mutch!!!

[axxint]

Okay, so this thread is a bit over my head but...

I'm having the same problems getting the "Error 500 - Internal server error" intermittently on some, but not all backend items from cpanel (most frustratingly the article manager most of the time). I was using Safari on a Mac, but in Firefox everything works fine. Ideally that would fix things, but I'm not the only one who is going to be administering the site...

There are a couple of different 'solutions' I've seen in this thread, and on some others:
1. messing with Joomla's php files
2. messing with your server memory
3. something to do with an administrative folder and some numbers
4. messing with your browser settings

And then there's the option of trying to get normal people to use Firefox where it just works without a fuss... which is probably the toughest and most unfeasible of them all...

Now I'm not a developer, so everything other than #4 is mysterious and neigh unintelligible to me. Is my issue even the same as the one in this thread (I can login just fine)? I installed 1.5 in a new directory and migrated content from a 1.0 version with mtwMigrator. My host is 1&1, and while I don't know the specifics, I do know their servers are pretty good with supporting popular needs. I've been installing extensions all day, and I think the problem started today (though I really can't be sure). I've disabled my recently installed extensions and am still getting the problem in Safari. Do I need to uninstall them to get to the bottom of this? Do I need to try one of the aforementioned solutions?

Thanks!

[PhilOSparta]

One of my clients indicates that he has had this problem on his site. I maintain about 30 Joomla sites, and his is the only one that has the problem. I mention this only because his site is the only one hosted at 1&1. All the rest are hosted at various other locations across the US. Most are on Apache servers as is the problem site.

All sites are using J 1.5.11

Since I have not changed any PHP files, made no changes to file permissions from those provided during the install routines and no attempt has been made to make any server memory adjustments, I am at a loss as the the cause of this problem. I personally could not duplicate the error myself using Firefox or IE 7.
I have asked my client for more info on browser usage, time of day and user activity during the error, and I will report those findings here.

Regards,

Phil

[PhilOSparta]

This is the follow up with my client:

Thanks for all your research Phil.
I use Internet Explorer and can get into both sites as an observer.
I get the same error message at both sites when I try as an Administrator.
The problem began about 1 week ago. This is about the time that I went to 1and1 and installed a new domain.
I will try deleting that right now.

And a second follow up:

Hey Phil,
I called 1 and 1 and they walked me thru the cure. I had to erase temporary files, history, etc.
Thanks for getting me to think about 1 and 1.

I'm hoping that's the end of the issue for me.

Phil

[axxint]

Interesting, so all that was about his browser? I've found that sometimes Safari messes up in similar ways to IE7, which is actually great for Mac based web design.

[PhilOSparta]

Interesting, so all that was about his browser? I've found that sometimes Safari messes up in similar ways to IE7, which is actually great for Mac based web design.

Yes, I verified with my client that it was a browser issue and now everything is working ok.

Phil

[tpflanz]

PhilOSparta's solution also worked for me.

Make sure to clear ALL private data and info.

[MrBloodyAxe]

I have exactly the same problem, Yoomla is working on Windows 2008 Server under IIS7.
I noticed that it happens when Yoomla is installed with example data, if I make clear installation with empty tables all is working.

[NEO-BAHAMUT-]

Hi guys,

i have just set up my site in house running on IIS7. Everything is working ok although when i try and get in to the admin section it gives me an error 500.

I believe that the answer could be what Stephen has said above. Can anyone tell me how i change my permissions through IIS7 like stephen is saying?

[axxint]

So just posting a follow-up: I eventually got to the bottom of my problem, and for me it was PHP version. My new Joomla 1.5 site was in a directory of a root that had been established a few years before, and that root site was using PHP4 as default. I created a .htaccess file for my Joomla 1.5 directory telling it to use PHP5 as a default and that cleared up my problems.

[tpflanz]

Occasionally I still get this error. There is no specification of the PHP version in the .htaccess file, so I am at a loss.

I have tested by simply leaving the site alone for a while then coming back to it, and going back into the article manager, and sometimes no problem... even if I don't clear the cache and private data.

Any other suggestions?

[assa]

I've got the same problem. My platform is Windows XP, Zend Core (Apache). I found that in my case error caused by curl_version() function. It called 2 times in simple pie library file. I do not know how to solve it. Just commented rows where that function called.
May be it will help someone


PS: it fails only my PC. It works fine on Joomla instances installed on live sites hosted on UNIX machines

[jonbondwolfgang]

In my case, on an IIS7 system, I tracked it down to giving the "Users" group write rights to the admin/cache folder.

On the /administrator/cache folder click property->security->Edit-> and check the "Users" permissions. If it has write permission, I get Server 500 errors. The same user can have rights to most other folders it seems without trouble.

Although the system seems setup correctly, the Joomla! Security Newsfeed still says "Please make the Cache directory writable." but if I use this particular user group, BLAM! Server 500 on the next logout and login. But at least I can log back in now.

BTW, deleting the folder and restoring from clean didn't restore the file permissions. Windows remembers the bad settings and keeps re-creating the same permissions, even from a clean copy.

[Suma5566]

Same Problem!!
i have windows 2008 R2 and IIS 7.5
wordpress is working but Joomla won't work
any Solution?