How to Fix the 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress

Aug 16, 2023

How to Fix the 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress

Are you running into a internal server error when trying to visit your WordPress site? The internal server error is one of the more common errors but it does not have any other information than there is an error. We’ve helped hundreds of people resolve the internal server error on their site and will sho you how in this video.

There are a few possible causes and we will go over each but if none of our recommendations are successful you would want to reach out to your hosting provider to see if the error is on the hosting’s end.

First the simplest method to try and resolve the issue would be to resave your permalinks. This will attempt to genreate a new htaccess file for your site to use that should resolve post pased 404s. Should that not work we will walk you through the manual method to remove the .htaccess.

If the problem is not from your htaccess you we will try increasing the PHP memory limit. This will include generating a new file, adding some code to it, and uploading it to your hosting area.

The final method you can attempt for the solution would be to reupload WordPress’ core files with FTP. We only recommend the wp-admin and wp-includes folders so you do not overwrite the content of your site.

Text version of this tutorial
http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorial…

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Content

0 -> Is your site currently showing an internal server error on it? Well don't

3.87 -> worry I'll show you four different methods that you can use to get it up

7.14 -> and running quickly. The internal server error is actually an issue on the server

12.04 -> itself and sometimes it's not anything to do with your website or your

15.69 -> WordPress installation but sometimes it is. So we'll go through these four items

19.47 -> but just know that you may have to contact your hosting provider as well.

23.38 -> Now note some of these solutions will also be involved using an FTP client

28.289 -> there are several to choose from but the one that I'll be using in this video is

32.219 -> FileZilla so make sure you get your FTP credentials ready and an FTP client

37.77 -> installed on your computer. Alright if your site is down the first thing that

42 -> you can look for is you can check for a corrupt

45.03 -> htaccess file to do that let's open up our FTP client. On the right you want to

50.52 -> make sure that you're inside the public HTML of your website so that you can see

55.26 -> things like your htaccess file. Let's right-click and rename this you can

61.35 -> rename it anything we simply don't want it to be the htaccess file name. Once you

67.68 -> rename that you should be able to go to your website and see if you can access

73.799 -> it. If you can access it then that's great then we'll just need to do one

78.09 -> quick thing to get you back up and running quickly and you'll want to make

82.11 -> sure you go into the dashboard of your website head down to Settings, Permalinks.

88.08 -> You don't have to do anything different to it simply scroll down and click Save

92.88 -> Changes. That just makes sure that your permalink structure is the same and that

98.009 -> all of your URLs can be accessed correctly and you should be good to go.

103.72 -> Now if that didn't fix anything then head back over to your FTP client. The

108.659 -> next thing that we can look at is it's possible that maybe you can access your

112.26 -> website fine but you can't access the admin side. If that's the case for you

117.2 -> then increasing the PHP memory limit could help you. Open up a notepad or

122.52 -> something that you can type in and and add memory equals and then the amount

128.31 -> that you want the element to be. I'm gonna do 128 just be on the safe side

133.68 -> and we'll need to save this. Save it as php.ini once we save it we need to

140.22 -> upload it to our admin folder so on the right I'm going to click on admin on the

146.82 -> left let's click refresh and here's my php.ini

152.98 -> I'll right click on that and upload it. Now that that's uploaded you

158.28 -> should be able to go back to your dashboard and see if you can access your

161.79 -> admin area. We've had several users who've tried that in it worked for them.

166.049 -> Now if the admin area isn't the only issue or if none of these have fixed

170.43 -> your problems so far then we'll need to do something else. What we'll need to do

174.81 -> is we need to deactivate all of the plugins it's possible that one of your plugins

179.129 -> is causing the issue so on the right let's make sure that we go up to the

184.14 -> plugins area. Once we can see wp-admin and wp-content let's double click on

189.8 -> wp-content and you see the plugins folder here and we want to, we want to

196.409 -> deactivate all plugins at the same time and the fastest way to do that is to

200.28 -> simply rename the plugins folder so I'm going to right click rename you can

206.519 -> rename this to anything and just say deactivate and then you should be able

212.76 -> to go to your website and see if it works. If it does work that means that

219.209 -> one of your plugins is corrupted. You'll need to activate each plugin

223.29 -> individually until you can find the plugin that is corrupted so you'll want

227.699 -> to go back to the FTP area and we'll rename this back to plugins so I'm going

236.1 -> to right click rename I'll remove that to just plugins. The cool thing about

242.32 -> WordPress is once I've deactivated everything all the plugins are in

246.769 -> deactivated mode so you/we can just head back over to our WordPress dashboard, go

252.75 -> down to plugins, installed plugins and all of the plugins are here they're just

257.669 -> deactivated. So activate each one individually and when you come across

262.26 -> the plugin that causes the problem with your site again then you know that

266.969 -> that's the one wrong. Now it's possible that one of the

269.64 -> core WordPress files is corrupted so we can try uploading a fresh set of core

276.12 -> WordPress files. To do that let's head over to wordpress.org and we'll download

281.55 -> the most recent WordPress installation. Once that's downloaded we need to

286.35 -> extract the files. All right now that we have the folder here we only want to

291.74 -> upload two folders we only want to upload the admin folder and the

296.64 -> wp-includes folder. That ensures that your theme and all your customizations to

302.19 -> your website stay the same so let's go back to our ftp client on the right I'll click

308.28 -> refresh to see the latest now go into my WordPress folder and I want to click on

315.28 -> the admin and then I can control click on includes that's on the left on the

321.84 -> right we want to make sure that we are in the right folder so i'm going to

325.2 -> click on the dots to go up one more level and you see the admin and the

330.84 -> includes folder here so we know we're in the right location. On the left I'm going

334.83 -> to right click and click upload. We do want to overwrite and let's go ahead and

339.93 -> say always use this action and apply it to this queue only. That way we won't get

344.31 -> this notification any more so let's click OK

347.28 -> and this will take a little bit of time to upload you see there are several in

351.51 -> the queue and how many are being successful so I'm going to pause this

355.59 -> and we'll come back when it's done. Now those files have been uploaded you can

360 -> head over to your site and see if it works for you one of those four items

364.14 -> should have fixed it if it's a WordPress related issue. If your site is still

368.22 -> suffering the internal server error issue then it's likely something to do

372.12 -> with the server that your site is on and you'll need to contact your hosting

376.5 -> provider to get them to fix it. Did you learn something from today's video? If so

380.49 -> subscribe to our YouTube channel and we'll send more helpful tips to help you

384.87 -> manage your WordPress website and thanks for watching

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj4tfvMlcJs