You’ve probably faced this error before. Blank page telling you’ve got Internal Server Error and no idea what to do.
It may occur any time you install WordPress, plugin theme, etc. But, in fact, this error is not limited by WordPress usage, it’s a general server error and any user may obtain it.
Here are 5 most common reasons of 500 error in WordPress:
– Web server has wrong configuration;
– Files/folders permissions are not set properly;
– Broken files or files containing invalid code;
– Low/insufficient PHP memory limit;
– Conflict with third party plugins.
First of all, we would recommend you to create a dump base to be sure you’ll be able to do a backup and you won’t lose any information.
1. Web server has wrong configuration
In case your web server is configured not properly, that may cause the Internal Server Error.
After you make sure that none of the following solutions isn’t fixing the error and it’s not related to the WordPress, Plugin or Theme installed, contact your hoster.
They’ll be able to check the error log, diagnose and fix the issue.
2. Files/folders permissions are not set properly
The most proper permissions are 755 for folders and 644 for files. You may check the post on how to set the permissions for files/folders. These have to fix all errors related to permissions.
Also, check whether all folders and files have one owner and one group to avoid other linked errors.
3. Broken files or files containing invalid code
Most commonly the files are corrupted while transferring to the web server. It may be caused by the incorrect rendering of the file by server or coding errors in the very file.
If the error is related to WordPress, the only way to fix it is to reinstall the fresh version of it.
In case it’s caused by a plugin, deactivate it and the error will disappear.
And when the error has something to do with the theme, delete and install it once again.
Also the 500 error may be caused by the .htaccess file. It mostly manages permalinks structure of the site. But sometimes it may be used by plugins and for replacement of some server configurations, if allowed.
If the .htaccess file was not properly edited or some plugins work incorrectly, it’ll contain faults. And it will return you Internal Server Error.
You may try to fix the issue by replacing it with a new one.
The .htaccess file is in your WordPress root folder (not in the theme).
Log in to the site via FTP.
The dot before its name means that the file is hidden by default (To display it in FileZilla go to Server > Force showing hidden files).
Upload the .htaccess file to your PC (to have a copy of it – name it e.g. .htaccess_copy).
Create a new blank .htaccess file on your PC and upload it to the root folder via FTP.
Login to the admin area, go to Settings > Permalinks > Select the preferable variant > Save changes. This will write all the needed information to the newly created .htaccess file and fix the 500 error.
4. Low/insufficient PHP memory limit
You may contact your hoster and ask him to increase your PHP memory limit.
The recommended settings are:
– max_execution_time 180
– memory_limit 128M
– post_max_size 32M
– upload_max_filesize 32M
Also, in case you’re getting 500 Internal Server Error (saying ‘Are you sure to do that?’), you may upload the theme via FTP. Extract the themeforest zip archive to get the theme.zip archive. Unpack it to get the ‘theme’ folder. Then go to your wp-content\themes\ folder and transfer there the ‘theme’ folder, that you’ve just unpacked.
Now, when you go to Appearance > Themes you’ll see the newly added theme there. Activate it, upload needed plugins and it’s ready to use.
5. Conflict with third party plugins
In case you can log in to your admin panel, go to the plugins section and deactivate all of them. After that load the home page. If the 500 error doesn’t occur, that means some of your plugins cause it. Activate every plugin one by one, refreshing the home page after each activation. As soon as 500 appear, you’ll know what plugin caused it, so deactivate it once again. Continue check the remaining plugins in order to check whether there are more that may cause the error.
If you get the Internal Server Error both on the home page and in the admin panel, log in to the site via FTP. Then go to wp-content folder and rename the plugins folder to plugins_deactivated. This will deactivate all plugins of your site as far as WordPress won’t be able to access the plugins folder after renaming. Then check whether the home page loads without error and, if so, rename the folder plugins_deactivated to plugins back again and deactivate all plugins from the admin area.
These solutions must help you to solve this Error and don’t panic when it appear.
In case you’ll need any help related to the theme, you may always contact us and receive qualified support.
Regards,
DFD Support Team
