500 Internal Server Error: Solved! Learn What it Means and How to Fix it

The message 500 Internal Server Error is one of the most frustrating messages a website owner can encounter. If you are lucky, it is followed by an explanation such as “Connection Timed Out” or “Please check your internet connection and try again”.

However, if it is not followed by an explanation, you may just see a blank page where you cannot continue.

If you are a WordPress user, you will at some point come across the term “500 Internal Server Error”. This error is triggered by your WordPress website whenever there is an internal problem. If this is the case with your website, you can be sure that something has gone wrong with the configuration of your web hosting provider’s server.

If you have accessed a particular website and received the dreaded 500 Internal Server Error message, do not panic! This usually means that the server cannot process the request properly. There are things you can do to fix this problem. You can find these solutions here.

You may want to leave this task to an experienced developer. But you do not have to. If you are one of those who, like me, want to fix things immediately, then you are in the right place.

Are you ready to get to the bottom of this? OK, First you need to understand the error, why it is a server error and how to fix it.

What is a 500 Internal Server Error?

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First of all, you need to know that this internal server error 500 is an HTTP error and that there are several status codes associated with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol AKA as HTTP. You can see the complete list of status codes here:

10 Status Code Definitions.

Today we will deal with one of the worst status codes: the status code 500 Internal Server Error. This HTTP status tells you that the server hosting the website you are accessing is unable to process such a request. There are many causes for this error, but in general, it is best to investigate the server itself.

What causes a 500 Internal Server Error?

There are many reasons why a 500 Internal Server Error may occur, some of which are: 

• No permission to access the website
• You cannot connect to the server hosting the website
• There is a configuration problem with your network
• Excessive PHP timeout
• PHP memory limit exceeded
• Incompatibility with the PHP version

Fixing 500 Internal Server Error WordPress

Fixing 500 Internal Server Errors can be a challenge, even for an IT professional. They occur when the server is busy or can not handle all your requests at once, and they are usually caused by problems configuring the hosting server that runs most websites. To fix this 500 HTTP protocol server error, we first need to locate it. This requires a troubleshooting strategy. So let us begin.

Troubleshooting 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress.

Troubleshooting 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress can be a daunting task, to say the least. The first thing you should do is check that your server is working and operational. If the server is up and running, you should check if your hosting provider has a customer support hotline. The problem is that sometimes the hosting provider’s support team takes too long to respond and you need to fix the 500 error now. That’s why we created this 500 Internal Server Error Troubleshooting Guide.

In this guide, we will troubleshoot your 500 Internal Server Error in five steps:

1. Check if plugins are causing the problem
2. We will check the installation of the theme
3. Check if the .htaccess file is corrupted 
4. Ask help to the support of the hosting provider
5. Reinstall or reset WordPress

1. Checking WordPress plugins

The best way to find out what plugins might be the cause of the 500 status error is to disable all plugins and then activate them one by one. Which will make it easier to find the culprit and fix it. Now, disabling the plugins is very simple, here is how:

3 Steps to disable all WordPress Plugins:

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Under Appearance, find the “Plugins” section. Hover over the word “Plugins” and click on “Installed Plugins”.
3. In the plugin dashboard, click on “Bulk Actions”, select “Disable” from the list of drop-down options and click on “Apply”.

All installed plug-ins should now be deactivated.

Now it is time to find the culprit!

For this, you need some patience because you have to go through one plug-in after the other until you find the plug-in that is causing the 500 Internal Server Error.

The best way to find out which plugin is causing the HTTP 500 Internal Server Error:

1. After you have deactivated all plug-ins, keep the normal browser open in which you have deactivated all plug-ins. Then open an incognito browser and open your website or the web page that triggered the Internal Server Error Code 500.
2. Go back to the normal browser (not the incognito browser) and activate the first plugin in the list.
3. Clear the entire cache, wait 1-2 minutes and press Ctrl+Alt+Sup on the incognito page.
4. Check whether the error occurs again. If it does, you have found the culprit. If the error does not reoccur, continue troubleshooting all other plug-ins until you find the one causing the error.

Ok, having done all that, you have solved the problem? Great, then you can continue your work, but if not, then you need to do more tests!

There is another possible scenario that happens when you can even load your website at all due to the 500 internal server error. In this case, you will need to login to your Cpanel and go to the section called “File manage”, find the folder that contains all plugins and disable them from there. here is how to disable all plugins using Cpanel.

Steps to disable all WordPress plugins using Cpanel:

1. Log into your cPanel and click on the file manager folder.
2. Navigate to your WordPress installation folder. Example – Public_html/your-website
3. Locate the plugins folder, which you can find here: Public_html/your-website/wp-content/plugins. There are all plugins you were using in your WordPress website.
4. Now rename the plugins folder, to something like “faulty-plugins”. To rename the folder – > simply right-click on it – > Rename

Now all plugins that you have installed in your WordPress are disabled. Try reloading your site in your browser’s incognito mode to see if the problem you were having is now gone. If so, you need to find out which of the plugins caused the problem.

To do this, you should first create another folder and name it “plugins”.

From here you should try to open your website in an incognito tab. The best thing to do is to reinstall all the plugins one after the other and try to see if the problem occurs again with each reinstallation.

The advantage of this approach is that you will not receive an error message in case of a faulty plugin. That means you do not have to check which one it was, you just have to delete the renamed plugin folder, and sayonara 500 Internal Server Error.

500 Internal Server Error: Solved!

No? Oh boy! let’s continue with our troubleshooting!

2. Check the WordPress theme installed

Themes are prone to internal server errors that can be fixed with the right know-how.

There are many reasons why your website is not working properly, but some of them point to your installed themes. WordPress is a popular content management system that often has issues with themes. With the right know-how, you can rule out your theme as the culprit for the 500 Internal Server Error by deactivating the theme marked as “active” in your theme’s dashboard. These are the steps:

1. – Log in to your WordPress dashboard
2. – Hover over the “Appearance” left menu item and click on “Themes”.
3. – Deactivate the active theme and activate a default theme. (WordPress currently comes with three default themes: Twenty Nineteen, Twenty Twenty and Twenty Twenty-One).

After performing this method, you should open an incognito tab again and try to load your website. If it works, you have found the culprit. 500 Internal server error fixed!

But what if you can no longer log into the WordPress backend dashboard because of this 500 Internal Server Error?

Then you need to follow these further steps to manually deactivate the themes via Cpanel.

Disabling WordPress Themes Using Cpanel:

1. Log in to your cPanel and click on “File Manager”.
2. Double-click on the “public_html” folder and navigate to the “wp-content” folder and click on the “themes” folder. 
3. You should then see the list of installed themes. It is best to rename your main theme folder to “testing-theme”.

Once this is done, open your website in an incognito tab to check if it works!

If it does not, we move on to the third and simpler method of troubleshooting the 500 Internal Server Error.

3. Check if the .htaccess file is corrupted

When you get an internal server error on your WordPress website, it is not uncommon for the cause to be a problem with your .htaccess file. If this is the case, it may be because you or someone else was trying to make changes to the site or perform upgrades or modifications when the error occurred.

To fix the 500 Internal Server Error, you can try repairing, restoring or recreating a .htaccess file. This htaccess file allows you to make changes to the configuration of your website without having to edit the server’s configuration files. Because of the great importance of this file, it must be handled with care, as it can mess up your entire website and cause the 500 Internal Server Error, among other errors.

If the Htaccess files become corrupted, this can lead to problems such as broken links, internal server errors, unwanted redirects and much more.

If your .htaccess file becomes corrupted, it is usually because you have installed a faulty plugin (often nulled plugins) or tried to customise the file by adding commands that are not supported by your web server. The most common cause is themes that are not coded correctly (or trying to install nulled themes). In any case, you need to fix this 500 Internal Server Error (and stop using nulled plugins and themes). So let us try to fix this server error by correcting your Htaccess file.

The best option you have is to use a backup that you or your hosting provider may have. 

If you replace your current .htaccess file with a backed-up file, most websites that experience this 500 Internal Server Error due to a corrupted .htaccess file will be back online and the error fixed!

Oh, you do not know how to find your htaccess file? I do not know that either! XDDD. Just kidding, here are the steps to find the htaccess file:

In most cases, you will find this .htaccess file in the root directory. Yes, there where you can also find other important folders like wp-admin, wp-content and wp-includes.

Some hosting providers hide the htaccess file because it is important for the operation of your website. If you can not see it, make sure all hidden files are viewable. Just check the file manager settings of your WordPress hosting account.

How to find an Open .htaccess File?

1. Go to your file manager folder – > you will find the folder public_html. (root folder)
2. If you cannot see the .htaccess file, navigate to the top-right menu, there you will see the word “Settings”, click on it and activate the option Show hidden files.
3. Now activate the display of all hidden files so that you should now be able to see the .htaccess file.

Here you can simply delete the file and create a new one or edit the current file. Here you can see how to carry out these two tasks:

Task one: Delete the htaccess file:

Just click on the file and press delete! I told you it was easy! 

Task two: Create a new htaccess file:

OK, this is quite easy and you should do it directly from the Cpanel dashboard. These are the steps to create a new htaccess file:

Click the New File button at the top of the menu.

You need to name the file .htaccess, yes, with the dot in front of it. Paste the code I have given below, because that’s the default setting you need for your WordPress website, and click “Create” to save your changes.

The default settings of the Htaccess file:

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^index.php$ – [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPres

There is also the option to use and FTP client.

An FTP Client is a sofware that manages files on a remote server.

So, if you are using an FTP Client to upload your website content instead of WordPress’ built-in editor, then follow these steps:

Go to the Server menu and enable the option “Force showing hidden files”.

Now you should see the .htaccess file that was hidden.

In case you were wondering: Are these steps the same for all hosting providers? They may vary a little, but in general, the variations are very small.

Ok, it’s time to test the salt! Is it sweet? Does your website load perfectly? Nice, you just fixed the 500 Internal Server Error. Hooray!

No? Do you mean you are still seeing the same error? Then it’s time to get help!

4. Ask for the support of your hosting provider

If you have come this far and your 500 Internal Server Error still persists after all of the above, it is time to ask the support team at the company providing your hosting service to reset your site to the last working version from which a backup was made.

Some unusual problems can trigger these 500 internal server errors in WordPress, but at this point, it may be best to ask your host. The problem may even be a genuine server issue that they can at least confirm, and they can also investigate things like file permissions errors and other causes.

The problem with this method is that hosting providers sometimes have very poor customer support. To fix the error today, try contacting the provider, preferably via live chat. If there is no such thing as live chat, change hosting providers. XDDD, Nah, just kidding, send them an email or give them a call. 

But at this point, these support features are an indicator of how good your hosting provider is, and if it’s bad, you’d better switch to a better provider. There are many options, I can tell you 4 of the best:

1. SiteGround
2. Hostinger
3. WPEngine
4. Namecheap

Now for the last method, which I list last because it should be your last option, namely resetting your WordPress installation.

5. Reinstalling your WordPress site

Say none of the above has worked, even your hosting provider’s support has not responded yet, but you need to fix that 500 Internal Server Error today. Desperate diseases need desperate cures!

Here you will carefully try to fix everything, and this article will help you. So let us do it right.

First of all, you need to make a backup of your files, for this, you have two options:

1. Download the backup created by your hosting provider.
2. Manually create your own backup.

Whatever you decide, these are the steps to create a backup of your website:

How to download a backup from your hosting provider:

1. Log in to your Cpanel dashboard.
2. Look for an icon labelled Tools & Utilities. There you should see an option called Backup Manager.
3. Then click on the appropriate icon for the backup file you want to download and save the file to an easy-to-find location on your computer.

Manually create a backup of your website’s files.

There are two options here, depending on how serious your 500 Internal Server Error is.

1. If you are able to log into your WordPress backend dashboard, you can simply export a backup using the “Export” option you see when you click on the “Tool” option in the left side menu of WordPress.
2. If you do not have access to your WordPress dashboard at all, you’ll need to go to the Cpanel dashboard or use an FTP client. Let us take a look at how to do this properly.

Create a backup of your website via the WordPress dashboard:

Creating a backup of your website thru Cpanel and FTP Client

Finally, and no less importantly, once you have backed up all your files, you can simply reinstall your WordPress, preferably from your Cpanel dashboard. If you need help reinstalling WordPress, here is another nice video:

Uninstalling & Reinstalling WordPress to Troubleshoot.

How does the 500 Internal Server Error impact SEO?

Now you know what an internal server error is and how to fix it. Now it’s time to take a look at the effects this error could have on the search engine optimisation of your website.

An internal server error can be a serious problem that can cause you to lose visitors, revenue and even your search engine ranking. That’s why it’s important to invest in a service to optimise your website.

It can take months to recover if you do not take action. Therefore, it is important that you address this problem before your website is affected.

One way to identify potential 500 server errors on your website is to conduct weekly technical audits to identify issues before they can lead to bigger problems.

You do not want your online business to suffer the effects of 500 server errors for too long.

If you feel you can not do this, do not panic, just drop us a line in the comments below and we will sort it out for you.

Fixing the 500 Internal Server Error Final Words.

There you have it, all the most effective solutions for a very annoying problem that tends to break our nerves every time it happens. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us and we will be glad to help!

I tried my best so everybody can follow regardless of their level of knowledge.

Hopefully, you found this article to be helpful, please share it with your friends and your cat.

Good luck!