[Error] Error Code 500- Internal Server Error

[Matt]

Page throwing a 500 Internal Server Error?

Here are some things you can do to help troubleshoot the errors.

For Perl Scripts:
After you are positive that you have uploaded your CGI scripts in ascii mode and have set the permissions correctly (usually 755)?

If yes, you might consider adding a "- w" after the shebang line (#!/usr/bin/perl)

Your shebang will then look like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

This will sometimes cause Perl to spit out exactly what the issue is.

For PHP Scripts:
After you are positive that you have uploaded your PHP scripts in binary mode and have set the permissions correctly (usually 644 or 444)?

View the error logs!

Did you know that your control panel has error logging enabled?

This lets you see where the script might be failing as well.

Log into the control panel and select Stats > Error Log.

You might even see "error_log" in the same directory that your scripts run in. This can be a good place to start.

[Manna8]

Hi Matt

My sites gone off the air with the error message below... I have been trying to install amember as we are having our site built (very different to the site we have now which is a tester site for us to try things out on)
Amember requires us to upload in Binary which I did however and recieved the error message. I have contacted them and their response was that php is not enabled on our host - which I have gone back to them saying it is. However, in the meantime I have read your above and I'm a bit confused. Amember require the CHMOD to be set to either 777 770 or 707 which again I had done, and still the message. Can you help me work out what the problem is? I am still waiting for amember to get back to me regarding php being enabled, but perhaps you might have something I can tell them to help sort this out. I have also noticed Haylee's SSL certificate has expired?

Kind regards
Caroline Connor
Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@domain.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.
Apache/1.3.37 Server at www.domain.com Port 80

[Matt]

Have you tried chmod 755 or 644? Anything higher than that will not run on servers that use PHP CGI. (Also known as php suexec or suphp) So if the vendor says to use 777 use 755 (on directories) and 644 on php files.

What does the error log in cPanel say?

[Matt]

Also check out if your .htaccess file has 'php_value' or 'php_flag' in it. I think amember uses those and that is the incorrect syntax for PHP CGI.

See this thread if you see php_flag or php_value errors in your error log:
http://glowhost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=373

[Manna8]

Thanks Matt!

[Matt]

No problemo. Sorry for the late response I never saw you replied