Problem: After updating the blog to WP 2.7 everything was running smooth. But when opening some of the plugin setting pages the server responded with a “500 Internal Server Error” – especially when using plugins like “XML Sitemap Generator for WordPress” or when uploading pictures. When I activated the “StatPress Reloaded”-plugin non of the admin section was accessible anymore.
Diagnosis: PHP is running out of memory.
Solution: If you are running your own root, dedicated or virtual server this is an easy bugfix: You just have to change the php.ini of your server and provide more memory to your PHP installation. On a shared hosting server – like at the webhosting solutions at 1and1 you often don’t have access to that central php.ini. But there is an easy workaround:
Create a text file and name it “php.ini” (without the quotes 😉 ) and with a single line of code in it:
memory=20MB
This file has to be placed into the directory /wp-admin/ within your WordPress installation.
That’s it! 😉
i will try this in my blog http://hem.com.np i am actually getting 500 when i try to edit pages
Hope this helps for you! All the best to Nepal from Germany!
Choosing a good web site provider and registrar is critical for a successful internet business.
I have come to the conclusion that I made the dreadful error of choosing a company because it had a 5 page ad in a popular computer magazine. I believe I have put my trust in a straw man. In my opinion 1and1, with CEO Oliver Mauss, is a horrible company and many customers have voiced a host of complaints on various blogs.
It should be a warning that when their phone is answered by a recording that tells you if you have gotten a notice from NCO, a collection agency, to press a certain number. If they are a reputable business, why do they have to send so many accounts to a collection agency?
Patrick Frey (Patterico) of the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office alleges his domain was high jacked and put up for auction on SEDO. SEDO is an associate company of 1and1.
Patterico:
Hey it worked great.. i also got my archives page up after doing this… perfect… thanks again from Nepal to Germany
This worked like a charm– thank you so much!!
What is being achieved by this? I am in a Hosted environment an dcurrently have 32mb or so allocated for PHP, does this commit 20mb of the total global specified or allocate an additional? presume the former.
Hello webmaster I think your post ?n for 500 Internal Server Error after upgrading to WordPress 2.7 at 1and1-server | codedifferent.com? it?s really great. Hope some another good post to read on this blog in the future. Take care.
Love your post!! Finally someone got it right!!! Would you mind if I put a blogroll link back to your post? 🙂
Perfect work!Keep posting
🙂
That’s just sweet! Thank you.
Do you know how many times I’ve uninstalled, deleted, reinstalled plugins across multiple blogs since 2.7!
You are my WordPress God for a Day.
Thank you! It solved my “500 server error problem” in a WP 2.0.11!
Regards,
Greg
Thanks so much! This resolved my problem with the admin area in WordPress 2.7. I am running my site wosko.us on 1and1 and this was the first problem I’ve experienced. Guess I haven’t pressed their hosting solution to the limits yet.
Thanks, Simon
Thanks! Your awesome! worked for me!
great, thank you very much, worked for me too
sorry didn’t work for me. I have also disabled all plug-ins one at a time. I get a blank page when I click on a page or comment in FoxFire and 500 internal error for each of these in Internet Explorer. I have updated all the plugins and have upgraded to the latest wordpress as well as the latest foxfire and internet explorer. I don’t have wp-cache. I have checked all the files for blank lines. The problem is with all of my websites each has a different theme on the websitesource server but one of them is on a yahoo server and all have the same problem?????
@Jolene: I’m not sure but this may be a compatibility issue of your wordpress-theme. Did you test your website with an other theme, yet? Hope this hint helps to get your blog running again.
I tried it and it’s not working for me, although my problem is slightly different. I am only getting the error message when trying to post / edit / update Pages. Categories are fine, plugins fine, etc. I deactivated, deleted and reinstalled all plugins, and that did nothing to help. Coincidentally we are hosting with 1and1 and they were of no help yesterday. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Nevermind, I actually found this suggestion and it worked for me.
http://www.designforunity.com/archives/425/comment-page-1#comment-78
Thanks! I saw this problem for the first time today and this fixed it. Cool!
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!
That worked perfect for me. I was just getting ready to call 1and1 tech dept. Appreciate you sharing the knowledge.
Thank you so much!! This problem is now solved. It waste me many time before I discovered your post and I could fixed it in 1 minute.
😉
Solved my problem. Much appreciated! I’m surprised not enough people mention this simple solution elsewhere on the web, making it harder to find.
thanx for this – I’m used to editing php.ini and .htaccess for many of my sites (joomla and drupal) but didn’t even think about it for wordpress, but I’ve been getting several error 500’s on my blog here and there.
I just put this in and I sincerely hope it works!
Thanks for this post!
Man, this is awesome. I have been looking and doing so many things to correct the problem. I came across this solution at it worked like a charm. That was a big sigh of relief.
Thanks so much! I too use 1&1 and was running into this error whenever I tried to use the automatic upgrade feature on any of my plugins. The thought of having to manually upgrade all the plugins (which get updated frequently) was driving me nuts. I followed your steps and now it’s working like a charm. YOU ROCK!
Excellent -this resolved my issue as well. Perhaps it it time to re-evaluate 1and1. Thanks again for your help.
This solution totally worked for me. I has used the WP Auto Upgrade plugin and then got the 500 error after doing the “upgrade” from 2.7 to 2.8. Am using self-hosted WordPress on 1and1. Thanks so much!
I can’t believe that worked! I mean, it seemed so simple, I was about to write it off, but wow! Upgrade from 2.7.1 to 2.8, just so you know. Thanks greatly.
This solution also worked for me. thx
Thanks for this! I have solved most of my Error 500s now – I was getting them every time I moved around the wp-admn/ area. Now I get them infrequently.
I will try this for myself and add a backlink to this page on my own blog entry about my experiences with the upgrade, at blog.redcentaur.com/2009/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-8/ .
I think it is important for the community to share this information.
Thanks!!
It worked for me!!
You’re great!!! 🙂
life saver! just met this error while saving a draft post on WP 2.8..
Thank you SO much for the super easy fix to this ANNOYING problem with 1and1.com.
I just uploaded the php.ini file. Hoping this works, and it looks like it will (based on the other comments).
Danke sehr!
Thank you so much!!! It fixed my problem!!!! I love you!!!
Thank you so much!! You have saved me from a lot of headaches. Do you have paypal?
Thanks for the catch Meadowlark! I have a PayPal account … but sharing my knowledge (and opinion) is what this blog is all about. So, communication with my readers is what keeps me going 😉
thanks so much Christian – this was a real savoir for when I updated from 2.3 to 2.8
You saved me!
David
I added the php.ini file, but it is still giving me the same “500” error. Please help.
Dude! You are awesome!! thank you so much! Here’s the site that you helped me fix http://www.michaelseriosa.com
Thank for for this post!!! It solved my problem. I had been pulling my hair out for hours with no hints to the true issus
IT WORKED!!!
Man I owe you one for this! Stop by my blog and download my free blog setup guide or let me know if there is anything I can do to repay you for this advice–top notch.
Ralph
http://ralph-altman.com
IT worked great thanks!!!!
How does this compare to the solution of adding
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
to the top of your .htaccess file?
THANKS!! That fixed my problem!
Hi, thanks so much for putting up this page. I came across this error and was expecting a major headache, but it took me 1 minute to fix following this guide (I’m with 1and1). Thanks again
Mark
http://www.neverflyeconomy.com
Brilliant! Thanks for the help.
Awesome, THANKS A MILLION!
Fantastic, great post, cant thank enough 🙂
Solution worked great for me! Thanks very much! I have been hosting my site and several others (list is growing) on 1and1 for years. I now have 5 sites running there. I have had my sites go down only 3 times that I can recall and they were very responsive to restore service. Thanks again for the solution!
Hey if you are experiencing problems installing wordpress or upgrading it regarding with Internal server error 500 for the install page, i recommend you to back up your old data base if you have already one, otherwise, just create a new one in order for the application to work properly. This error isn’t related neither to the .htaccess file, nor the permissions on the site, so don’t worry too much just delete or create a data base for Word press 😉
YOU ARE THE ONE!!!!
TNKS.
Thanks advance!
I’m a newbie,How can I change the php.ini of server and provide more memory
just add “memory=20M” into php.ini?
This is my php.ini file:
register_globals = off
allow_url_fopen = off
expose_php = Off
max_input_time = 60
variables_order = “EGPCS”
extension_dir = ./
upload_tmp_dir = /tmp
precision = 12
SMTP = relay-hosting.secureserver.net
url_rewriter.tags = “a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=,fieldset=”
[Zend]
zend_extension=/usr/local/zo/ZendExtensionManager.so
zend_extension=/usr/local/zo/4_3/ZendOptimizer.so
I called 1&1 told the tech my problem php is running out of memory. The tech said you need to change it to 40 mb .I asked if he could do it for me and 2 minuites later it was fixed.
Thank you so much! This aced what would have been a terrible headache.
I recently launched my WordPress on a 1and1.com hosted site and everything was fine on my end (being the admin). However, I made a dummy user account that only had “Author” privileges and the user account could access everything they’re supposed to in the control panel EXCEPT “Create/Edit” posts which was the most important thing NOT to be able to access.
Anyway, long story short, thanks to your incredibly simple fix everything is a-OK now. Thank you very much for helping and sharing this information!
Thanks a lot, it worked fine. I was trying to upgrade my WP to 2.9.
Rajeesh
Thank you! I was pulling my hair out with this business
Was having the same problem once I upgraded to WP 2.9.1 and accidentally activated all of my plugins at once. I was about to remove all of them before I found your solution, which worked! Thanks!
Thanks a million man! I would have NEVER figured this out on my own.
Hi man,
thanks a bunch, I thought I’ll go crazy with this mess. Your solution worked like a charm, no 500 error anymore.
You made a man happy today.
Thanks for that simple fix. The memory specification in the .ini file was all I needed.
After upgrading to 2.9.1 my site worked fine but I could not log in without the 500 error. Made sure all plugins were current but that didn’t help. Found your fix, created a notepad file with the memory instruction line and named it php.ini. Uploaded and VOILA!
Thanks!
Just bought a new 1and1 Home Linux package and encountered this problem when trying to edit one page in particular out of my 30 pages after upgrading wordpress from 2.9.1 to 2.9.2.
Your fix worked perfectly, and I was also able to upgrade plugins automatically which wasn’t working before, (although this may be unrelated to the 20mb fix).
Thanks!
Great, worked! massive thanks!!!!
thanks man. it worked like a charm… 1and1 really sucks
Works perfect – thanks!
It works as easy as one, two, three…thx.
I’ve only tried and successfully fixed this on various 1&1 shared hosting sites about a thousand times and it’s always something different and I always have to dig and dig and find a new solution. This seemed so simple that I almost didn’t even try it. And whatayaknow! Worked instantly. Resolved 500 errors, plugin downloading issues, the whole shabang. Thanks a million. Well done. Simple, elegant, quick. If only all solutions in WP (and in life) were this perfect.
Wow – Have used 1and1 for about 4 years and this is the first time I’ve had a problem… was just about to call tech support when I decided to search for this problem… and voila!
Thanks a million! It worked like a charm!!
Thanks a lot guys. I was able to fix this 500 error in my 1and1 Hosting account too.
Also, thanks to Codedifferent Blog for providing such good solutions.
Thanks for this – I have a 1&1 account and this fixed my Error 500 problem. Also solved an ongoing plugin issue too, so double bonus!
hi, if anybody tell me where to place the above mention “php.ini” file.
i dont have any idea about directory /wp-admin/…
can anybody tell me the path where to place “memory=20MB”
either on server or on local system. and if on server then where…????
plzz help me out…………
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! Fixed my problem, also a 1and1.com customer… have had them for more years than I can remember and love them as a host… great support the very few times I have needed it. I have 6 sites with them.
I wrote to them asking for an easy WordPress install…maybe if enough people write they will fix these little issues.
To Scion: You need to open a text editor like Windows “Notepad”, and paste “memory=20mb” in the text area and save as “php.ini” into the …”wp-admin” folder, which is on the server’s root directory or folder you installed the WordPress files in. (Did I confuse you more? If so, sorry!)
Thanks so much for the much needed fix!! Kudos!!!
Thank you!
Worked!!
Thanks so much. 🙂
So I doubt anyone will read post #84, but if they do — this solution worked for me, but i needed to put the file in the main directory, not the wp-admin directory. the problem i had was with xmlrpc.php — the array of comments was too big for php to handle.
it was a pain to figure out as well because the remote app worked, i replied to a comment and upgraded wordpress and it stopped working – so i thought the upgrade broke it, not the single reply comment. *sigh*
Thank you so much, that worked like a miracle
Thanks for 500 internal error solution 🙁 but on my page doesn’t work at all
Betty’s comment (#49) of adding AddType x-mapp-php5 .php to the top of your .htaccess file worked great for me! My problem was memory sucked up by WordPress Backup.
Thanks, you’re the only source I found that worked.
Great post! so helpful thank you so much I’ve check all and nothing work until I found you post thank you again
by the way works for the update to WordPress 3.0
Best regards,
A nice and simple fix. Thank you!
Im getting the HTTP 500 error on my cell phone browser. How would i fix that?
Did you try out the php.ini solution described in the blog post? Do you use a mobile WP plugin, like “WPtouch iPhone Theme”, or does the error occur on the mobile browser with the normal wp website?
Hi everyone,
Just had a client ask me to setup a wordpress site on his 1and1 hosting (business account) and ran into the same issue. 500 internal server error when editing pages in the backend. Everything else looked ok, site moved from another host without any issues.
Patched with the php.ini fix seen above, but also needed to to create a .htaccess file and put in
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
Hope this info helps those who stumble across this page
Cheers
Alasdair
Thank you! It solved my
holy crap … this actually worked! thank you so much.
Your a FREAKEN GENIOUS! Thank you!
I have tried to fix this issue with your solution…” AWESOME”….its working fine now..thank you for post this articles.
How much am I lovin you? A lot. Spent an hour trying to get this to work before finding your solution. Thank you thank you!
BTW – when i used wordpad to create the php.ini file and sent it via FTP it did not work. Looking at it closer on the server side – it went across as php.ini.txt —- I renamed the file php.ini and your solution worked brilliantly!
Your solution worked brilliantly for my upgrade to 3.0.
One little glitch I ran into was when I created the php.ini file in wordpad and then FTP’d it to 1 and 1 servers, it did not work initially. Upon closer inspection, the file went across as php.ini.txt. When I renamed the file php.ini – it worked perfect.
Thanks so much!
god bless you. 🙂
This worked great, thanks!
Fantastic! 1and1 are extremely rubbish but your post saved the night.
Thanks man………….u saved my day……….
Thx a lot man, this saved my day
muchas gracias
Thanks buddy. Same thing happened on my blog when upgrading to WordPress 3.01. Your solution resolved the issue.
Thanks for sharing… it helps.
Incredible, thank you for sharing with us. topic seems useful. Will make a note of your site and pop back again. Appears like a fantastic resource. Best wishes.
Thanks a lot! I upgraded to V3.0.1 last week and all was working well until yesterday. This has fixed the problem.
worked for me! Thanks!
Just thanks – worked for me too.
The trick does not apply in my case. If I publish a post I get this 500 error.
Just upgraded to WP 3.0.1 and had this problem after re-activating a plugin. This solved that issue. Thanks.
THANK YOU!!
Was having this issue with build 3.0.1.
DUDE!!!!! 30 sec’s on google, I find this post, and it SAVES my launch!!! You ROCK!!!!!!!
In the words of Ralphie’s school teacher in the movie “A Christmas Story”… A + + + + +!!!!
I received the same error and your guidelines was really helpful thanks for it
THANKS!!! This fix helped me as I just upgraded to 3.0.1.
This solved my problems! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Wow!
I’ve been struggling with this for a while now, and the page on my site for my new book ‘Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire’ started to have this problem right in the middle of editing it.
You saved me!
Now I can finish updating the content and not leave it half done.
Definitely bookmarking this page in case I forget what I did.
THanks!
🙂
Thanks! Doing a site for somebody who uses 1and1 UK. Seems to be quite a limited hosting company!
Worked brilliantly. Total star! Thanks
Thank you – this saved me so much hassle!
Thanks very much for this solution! It works perfectly.
Wow! Weeks of isolating and resolving the issue (am not a technical person), I found the solution and it worked! Encountered no more internal server error so far. Thanks a bunch!
it worked the first time but i upped it to 30mg and now my site is BLANK. wut happened to my estore? HELP!!
What a pleasure working with the WP community! This was especially a rewarding experience, as our Web Development business is popping right now, and we needed to get this particular problem straightened out.
Thanks Christian. You’ve got a fan in Terra Firma Media Group!
Wow. Thanks this helped a lot.
Thanks mate for this simple solution. I tried all other methods I found on other websites. Funny enough, I set up 1024 M as the php limit in cpanel (with root access) but I still have to have that damn php.ini within the wp-admin folder. Any explanation for this?
Thank again,
Marius
Brilliant! Thanks for the help.
You are awesome. Worked on this problem for 3 hours last night to no avail. Read your post and fixed my problem in 5 seconds. I can now install the NextGen photo plungin.
Thanks
I had the same problem when I upgraded from 2.x to 3. I placed the php.ini file with that one line, and it worked like a charm. THANKS!!! You saved me a lot of headache.
brilliant. perfect solution – thank you.
Sorry, I believe this solution only fixes the problem coincidentally. I can’t prove it, but I think neither this solution, nor the one about adding a handler for PHP5 in .htaccess actually fix the problem. I do know that BOTH solution only works VERY intermittently for me.
… sorry to hear, that the solution is not working for you. Hope you find a workaround for your problem.
Thanks so much!
I started getting 500 Internal Server Error after I upgraded to WordPress 3.0.5. The solution that helped me was changing the server response code from 500 to 200 in wp-includes/functions.php.
See it here http://extremeresults.biz/2011/02/error-500-internal-server-error-while-posting-a-comment-in-wordpress/
Finally right solution. Thanks a lot!
By all means try the various .htaccess, php.ini etc. fixes, but if all those fail to rectify your “500 internal server error” problem, here’s another thing to check for: if your login ID has started too many processes already, new processes cannot be created and you may get the “500 internal server error”.
To check how many process you have running, assuming you have shell access, run the following command on the shell command line:
ps axlwwf
The output looks like:
ps axlwwf
F UID PID PPID PRI NI VSZ RSS WCHAN STAT TTY TIME COMMAND
5 5289705 21014 20965 22 2 7760 1512 – SN ? 0:00 sshd: u35879284@pts/0
0 5289705 21020 21014 22 2 5728 1748 – SNs pts/0 0:00 \_ -bash
0 5289705 21043 21020 22 2 5388 1296 – SN pts/0 0:00 \_ /bin/sh /kunden/homepages/28/d94984537/htdocs/bin/keepalive 240
0 5289705 22105 21043 22 2 3852 464 – SN pts/0 0:00 | \_ sleep 240
0 5289705 22419 21020 22 2 4296 736 – RN+ pts/0 0:00 \_ ps axlwwf
This lists *all* the processes started by/owned by your UNIX ID. The UID is your numeric UNIX user ID. The PID is the ID of the process. The COMMAND column shows the currently running programs.
That will show all processes that you have started and are still running. You should not have more than a handful; anymore may be too many. To get rid of those that you know are not necessary, use the “kill” command:
kill
where is the ID of the process you want to kill. For example, to kill the “keepalive” process above, I’d do:
kill 21043
After doing the “kill”, do another “ps axlwwf”. If the process is still running, you can try a “forceful” kill:
kill -9 21043
(In my case, the “keepalive” background job starts every time I log in, but it keeps on running even when my login session was disconnected, resulting in a whole bunch of keepalive’s processes running. After killing those processes, things return to normal.)
Thanks so much for this solution!
Not only did it solve my problems with 500 errors, it also seemed to enable me to automatically update plug-ins that previously would hang on the “downloading…” step.
I guess it was a PHP memory issue all along.
Cheers!
Worked like a Charm.
-Cheers
Worked like a charm… thank you! As others have said, 1and1 has got to be the worst. If it wasn’t such a hassle I’d move in heartbeat… I guess that’s what they bank on. I’m committed to moving out of there by the end of the month.
Worked great! Thanks, I never would have figured that out on my own.
Thanks for that. In just a few minutes it solved the problem I was experiencing.
I was frustrated when I thought all progress I made was lost. But this tip and the wordpress revision history/restore saved my day! Thank you so much 🙂
omg just upgraded my wordpress files and got the 500 internal server error when i attempted to go to the admin page. used your php.ini file solution AND IT WORKS!! please everyone try it. thanks so much.
OMG! My head has been aching since morning because of this error and your solution worked like a charm. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for this easy solution! Worked great!
Sweet. This was a big help. Worked like a charm. Thanks!
Wow. That fixed my problem instantly! Thank you! As for the 1and1.com thing, I think I will be moving my business elsewhere.
Thank you! You saved me from quite a headache, haha. I wasn’t looking forward to a full WordPress reinstall!
Hi there, your fix didn’t help me, but the fix on this guy’s page did :
Basically add a .htaccess file to your main dir with this in it:
Options All -Indexes
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
http://www.jenkaufman.com/wordpress-update-error-1and1-517/comment-page-1/#comment-3415
IT WORKED, IT WORKED, IT WORKED!!!!!
Thanks
IT WORKED, IT WORKED, IT WORKED!!!
THANKS
Once the installation/upgrade is done, do I leave the php.ini file in the admin area or can I delete it? Thanks.
Sure, you have to leave it in the /wp-admin/ directory.
it work’s really nice man, Many many thanks
Excellent! Thank you so very much man, really cool. It worked!
THANK YOU!!! Been ready to cancel my 1and1 account because of this. Your answer saved me a TON of grief! Jean.
Worked for my website TopFacebookVideos.com. Thanks alot dude. You made my Day 🙂
Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just about to scream bloody murder at 1and1!
remove the 500 internal server error from your website.
1- go to apache httpd.confg file
2- find the mod_rewrite and remove # at the beginning
3- restart your services
Thanks a million! i was just losing it!
Hey the php.ini worked on my WordPress with 1and1 hosting. What an easy fix! I was about to uninstall and reinstall when I came across this. Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks!!! – CJS
hai friends. i m Tharik , I from India , can’t access my website and WordPress ple help me
So, Tharik, did you try the solution above, yet?
10x man, that really did the trick !
Yupiiiiiiiii.. it worked!!!!!!!! Thanks!!!
I spent days trying to resolve this problem. !and1 support was clueless. Your fix worked like a magic.
Thanks so much! This did the trick! You rock! 🙂
you are the man!! I was pushing the panic button!!!! thanks Keith R, thehealthandwealthnetwork.com
Worked like a charm! A 5-second solution to a very annoying problem. Thank you!!!
excellent tip! this really worked.. I dont know, how to thank you.. I guess th ephp memory had all drained out!
Thanks… but it is not working for me… sorry, but I am new in this… i am trying to do what you say but when i try to upload the file to the wp-admin it says i can
my site got error 500 after installing force gzip plug-in, not sure if your solution can help, I’ll try
Genius. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Been banging my head over why a client’s website should suddenly start failing with no changes to their hosting or files for a couple of months. You got me thinking that this could happen if a website is on shared hosting and the Shared server gets full and all the websites push the server’s memory to its limit.
Anyway, your recommendation of upping the memory in a php.ini file was spot on. Needless to say we will be moving this client onto one of our VPSs.
This fix worked like a charm! Our php.ini memory_limit was already set to 32MB, but for the latest WP update we had to bump it up to 64MB.
Thanks Christian.
IT WORKED!!!! 🙂
THANKS A LOT GUYS!