What Is a 500 Internal Server Error? Causes and How to Fix It

Almost every Internet user has, sooner or later, run into a 500 Internal Server Error while browsing. So 500 Internal Server Error what is this error? Why does a 500 error appear, and is it easy to fix? Let's MONA Media find the detailed answers in the article below.

What is a 500 error?

A 500 error is a general error with the HTTP status code 500. It usually shows up when your website's server hits a problem and cannot provide or display any information or content. The server then sends a 500 error page to your browser, and it appears on screen instead of the site's usual interface.

So when you visit a website and the message "500 Internal Server Error" appears, it means the site has an error. This error also shows up in other forms, such as "500 Internal Server Error”, “500 Error”, “HTTP Error 500”, “500. That’s an error”, “Temporary Error (500)" or simply "500", depending on how that site is set up.

What causes a 500 error?

In general, a 500 Internal Server Error comes from one of the following causes:

• A corrupted .htaccess file
• A plugin conflict
• The PHP memory limit
• An error in server software such as Apache, PHP,…
• Too many visitors at once, which overloads the server.

How users can fix a 500 Internal Server Error

Fix a 500 internal server error by reloading or refreshing the page

A 500 error is a temporary error on Web Server so you can easily fix it by refreshing or reloading (press F5) the site, or pressing the key combination Ctrl + R (on Windows) and Command + R (on Mac) to continue to the website you want to visit.

Clear the browser cache

If the website's cache has a problem, that can cause an HTTP error 500. This rarely happens, but when it does the simple fix is to clear the web browser cache you project.

Specifically, follow these 2 steps:

Step 1: Click the three-dot icon at the top right of Chrome > Choose More tools > Choose Clear browsing data… (Clear Browsing Data…)

Step 2: At Time range (Time Range), you can choose the period you want to delete > Choose Browsing history (Browsing History) > Choose Clear data (Clear data) to finish.

Clear cookies in the browser

In some cases, the simplest and most effective way to fix a 500 Internal Server Error is to clear the browser's cookies. After clearing all cookies, restart the browser and visit the site again.

The steps to clear cookies in the browser are similar to clearing the browser cache. However, after choosing the period you want to delete in Time range (Time Range) > Choose Cookies and other site data (Cookies and other site data) > Choose Clear data (Clear Data) to finish.

Come back to the website later

If you do not want to clear your data and you are not in a hurry, you can simply come back to the site later. Because this is a temporary error, once the site's administrator fixes it or the number of visitors drops, you will be able to open the site normally again.

Ways for website administrators to fix a 500 Internal Server Error

With years of experience handling technical website errors for clients, we have tried many different methods to find the most reasonable solutions. Each has its own strengths. Below are some ways to fix a 500 error that MONA has selected and put together:

Fix wrongly set file permissions

A wrong permission setting on files or folders on the server can cause an HTTP error 500. The fix is to check the error shown in URL and confirm the permissions for the files and folders.

Fix the PHP Server Timed Out error

This error is common on Linux servers or Unix running PHP. If an error appears in a PHP library or package and the server cannot read the PHP file, it causes a temporary 500 error. If the 500 Internal Server Error is caused by server overload or too much traffic, it cannot be adjusted this way.

Fix the .htaccess file

From our work experience, MONA has found that if the file .htaccess on your server is faulty or contains a lot of faulty code, it causes a 500 error. To fix the temporary 500 error, you need to make sure there are no errors in the .htaccess file.

A quick and simple way to check whether the .htaccess file is behind the 500 Internal Server Error is to delete or move this file, then refresh or reload the site. If the 500 error is gone, the .htaccess file was the cause.

Contact your provider or a professional company

If you have tried all of the fixes above and the 500 error still shows, contact your provider right away for quick support.

Or you can turn to professional companies such as MONA Media. With more than 10 years in the industry, with a team of staff who are rich in expertise and experience, we are confident in offering you A COMPLETE INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTION specializing in Hosting, SSL, Business Email, Domain, VPS and more. Built to meet the criteria of being "UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT", secure and safe, and to build professionalism and trust with customers.

For full details, please CONTACT US us on the hotline 1900 636 648 for the fastest advice.

That covers the concept and some ways to fix the 500 Internal Server Error that are simple and worth keeping at hand. We hope the article is useful and helps you resolve 500 errors quickly.

See how to fix other 5xx errors:

• Quickly fix a 502 Bad Gateway error
• How to fix a 504 Gateway Time-out error effectively

If you want to understand the groundwork behind this in more depth, the article What is Docker and why do companies use it to keep systems running stably explains it in detail and describes how we do it for our clients.