I'm trying to download software from a specific site, and no matter what I try to download I get this error message:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to
complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@******.com and inform them
of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have
caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error
log.
Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to
use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
How is this resolved?
I'm all too familiar with this error. I see it all the time when setting up or making changes to web sites.
The good news? It's not your fault.
The bad news? There's nothing you can do.
•
Quite literally an "Internal Server Error" is an error on the web server that you're trying to access. That server is misconfigured in some way that is preventing it from responding properly to what you're asking for.
Aside from informing the site owner - which may, or may not, be the "webmaster" email address that's included in the error message - there's absolutely nothing you can do to resolve this problem, because it's not your problem. The person who is responsible for the website needs to fix it.
So what if that's you? What if you're the webmaster?
Nine times out of 10, this error results from one of two very common errors:
An error in a cgi script that caused it to fail or output an error message before it started producing valid HTML. It happens to me all the time if I have a syntax error in one of my Perl cgi scripts.
A permissions issue attempting to access a cgi script. Depending on how your web server is configured, quite often it's not enough for the script to have "execute" permission, but it must also be owned by the correct user, and belong to the correct group. I can't tell you what that should be, since it varies widely from server to server (and even site to site on the same server). My best recommendation is to look at the attributes of a script that's working, and copy that.
The format of the error described here is common for Apache web servers. That means we can also look for common error logs. Once again, the location of these logs can vary a great deal based on the specific web server configuration.
access_log is the log of successful accesses. On a shared or virtual hosting server there may be many of these, one per web site, often with site-specific names, or in site-specific locations on the server.
error_log is the log of errors. One some hosts, there is an error log per site. On others, though, even though each site may have its own access_log, there may only be a single error_log for the system.
suexec_log is the log most people forget about. This log deals with the permissions used to execute cgi and other scripts. When a cgi fails to execute because its ownership is wrong, the generic "Internal Server Error" shows in the error log, but a more specific error detailing the permissions involved shows in this log.
And for the record, the message: "Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument..." indicates a second configuration error. When the web server encounters an error, the page it displays to report the error is actually just another .html file stored on the server. In all likelihood, the website has been configured to use "custom" error pages (meaning that the website can provide its own custom error messages), but the custom error pages were never created or configured.
Related:
Ask Leo! - How should I set up my Linux Web Server?
Article C2649 - May 10, 2006
THIS APPEARED ON AOL WEB-SITE WHILE TRYING TO FIND AN AIL PROFILE. SIMULAR PROBLEM WHEN TRYING TO UPDATE AN AIM PROFILE! AOL TRIES TO MAKE A CUSTOMER RESPONSIBLE.
OK
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, Member_Services and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Posted by: CHITLINGS at November 22, 2008 5:07 PMNOT TRUE. Or ot is true about 10% this article.
It is the client's FAULT! Just check your .htaccess file... argh!
19-Dec-2008
One question: I am useing mozilla firefox to view my yahoo email account and there's been a new feature where you can "connect" to different people in your address list. But I chose to ignore that, so I clicked "inbox". There's a small light blue text box that says "loading..." below the tab (yahoo toolbar). I waited for many minutes and it seems that nothing is happening. If however, I decide to right click on "inbox" and choose to open in another tab, I would be able to go into that page, but the problem is that I can't push send because I can't "open" send in another tab. Who should I bring this issue to?
Posted by: Isaac Lu at December 19, 2008 9:12 AMyes, this problem happens to many times when i try to open my own site? can you tell me what ca I do to reconfigure again
01-Jan-2009
hi,
in most cases the problem is your .htaccess !!!
sry... i can't tell u what you have to add to your htaccess or what to remove because i'm not on my computer right now... :S
but search google for this error and htaccess how to configure it.
best regards, john
Posted by: john at February 7, 2009 4:49 PMhi,
it's john again :>
it can be your .htaccess or if you set the premisson of a file or folder to 777 change it back to 755 or 644 or 666 and check if the error will diappear. ;)
john
Posted by: john at February 7, 2009 4:52 PMpage can not display error. why it happen?
06-Mar-2009
Thank You very much. I was getting the same error message and took your advise. I had changed permissions in the file public_html/admin/configuration and public_html/admin/admin.php my in zen cart root folder as I was adding the google base feeder contribution. I was getting the above error message when I tried to access (My Admin configuration) for my store.
I changed the permissions back to 755 and it is now working. I am very grateful to John for the info. Thanks
Posted by: Marion at March 15, 2009 12:19 PMYou might have a ht.access file in the site root.
Posted by: myles at May 18, 2009 8:39 PMI made a Sharepoint website for my office and everything was working fine until today. Now, the main page gives an Error 500 while every other page works fine. Because it was made using Sharepoint, the code is not accessible (I think) offline. Any suggestions?
Posted by: Dan at June 4, 2009 7:20 AM