500: Internal server error

[probeman]

Out of the blue we started getting this server error on our domain host for SMF 2.x when trying to load our main SMF page:

500: Internal server error

This error is generated when a script running on the server could not be implemented or permissions are incorrectly assigned for files or directories

We didn't change anything from our side. Any suggestions on what might have caused this?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[d3vcho]

Are you able to log in into the forum? Or it's not accesible on any page?

Has your host changed anything? Like the PHP version or somehing.

[probeman]

Just trying to go the the main smf index.php page causes the above error.

The error page also shows this:

Troubleshooting suggestions:

Temporarily disable any rewrite rules by renaming your .htaccess file if it exists.

Ensure that any CGI or Perl scripts have at least .755. permissions.

If trying to run PHP and you get this error, you may have an invalid php.ini in your /cgi-bin, or may be missing your php.dat file in this folder.

They tried resetting the permissions but that didn't help.

Several years ago I updated from 1.x to 2.x SMF and the php server was too old, and had to be updated, but I think they would have warned me if they updated the php server. But then again, maybe not.

[LiroyvH]

Do you have a server error log (eg in cPanel)? That might reveal more

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Any 500 error should leave an entry in the server error log, explaining why the error came to be. You should check the log, or ask your host to check it for you - if you can post the error here, we may be able to help you more - but without the actual error message, we can only guess.

[probeman]

Don't know cpanel. What folder would the log file be in?  Is it OK to share publicly?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Do you have some control panel in your hosting? Usually error logs can be found through there, and you would need to find the relevant lines that usually would say 500, Error, Error 500, Error soft exception or Error hard exception or something similar - followed by a reference to what caused it. These lines are usually safe to share, but I wouldn't share a whole log unless needed for some reason.

[probeman]

OK. I found the access log files in the htdocs/log subfolder.  But I searched for the strings "error" or "internal" and they are not present in any of the logs from the last few days.

What else can I do?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Access log and error log are two different logs, perhaps ask your host if they can help you find your error log?

[Kindred]

it's usually a file called error.log errorlog. or variations of that...
usually in the forum root directory -- but yes, check with your host for specifics.

[probeman]

OK, thanks.  I don't see any file with a name like this. I will contact the hosting service.