500 Internal server error question

Try checking your site’s error logs for a more specific error message. Error 500 is too generic to be of any real use. Your hosts should be able to help you in accessing your site’s error logs.

Thank you. I spoke to a rep with the hosting company and he directed me to the error logs stored in my directory on their server and suggested I look at them. However, I can’t move the most recent file over to my machine to view it. This may not be necessary though, as the most recent error log file is dated 7-15-2013. Basically, they told me this time that according to what they see, there’s no problems with their SQL server and said if there was, I wouldn’t be able to even view my website (which I can do). This issue only occurs when I’m logged into my WordPress dashboard and trying to make changes to various pages on the site.

Nevermind, I was able to access a most recent error log dated today, copied it over to my machine and pulled it up in Notepad, but have no idea how to read it.

I assume your log is in that format, “filename.log” ?

Simply drag and drop that file into your text editor, notepad for instance, notepad++ or anything you like.

If you have several files, access.log is irrelevant, go for error.log, and check for lines associated with your IP (as you may find it on whatsmyip.net, watch out that your IP didn’t change since the log file was registered).

That will look like a lot of rubbish, true, but you should be able to find “recurring” error messages, and if you can catch one of them as linked to the approx. time the errors took place, that will be either it, or linked to it.

Okay, thank you. I did what you suggested. I pulled the error.log file up in Notepad and notice this line reoccurring often.

[error] Premature end of script headers: php, referer: https://www.thegalleysink.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=953&action=edit
Aug 6 02:40:16 10.2.150.54: 147719:[error]

My IP address is also mentioned in there.

Try re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress 3.4.2. Make sure that you delete the old copies of files & folder before uploading the new ones.

And upgrade WordPress asap. Your site may already have been hacked because you are using an older version.

That’s what I was afraid of. I’ve been told it’s not always good to update your version of WordPress because the potential’s there that your theme may not work right with it until the theme developer’s made updates accordingly. That’s the reason why I’m still running such an old version.

Cleaning up a hacked site is a great deal more painful than switching to a new theme. Upgrade WordPress and keep it updated.

I agree. What’s the best method to update to the latest version of WP? Is it okay to go directly through the dashboard where it says along the top WordPress 3.6 is available! Please update now? Or should I download the files through the WordPress site and upload them?

As long as you have backups, you should be able to trust wordpress with self-updating itself from the admin section.

You never know what can, or can’t, go wrong, so make sure you have made a backup of your blog files (FTP knowledge ? Web hosting panel option ?), and of your database (either with phpmyadmin, the web hosting panel, or you may also install the wp-dbmanager plugin and ask it to make a backup, but don’t go losing that backup once you’re done, if possible ask the plugin to send you an email copy if the DB – have it zipped – isn’t too big for an attachement).

You may push carefulness to the next level and temporarily deactivate your plugins, reactivating them manually within the admin after the blog has been upgraded to 3.6.

Thank you and I plan on updating all of my WordPress site files. I spoke to our host provider again about this and he went into detail about an ongoing attack on WordPress sites against the administrative side. I’ve done a quick search and came across this and it sounds like this is the issue I’m currently dealing with.

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2013/04/15/WordPress-Sites-Targeted-Mass-Brute-force-Botnet-Attack

Here’s a screen shot of the constant server error message I get. I’m not sure if this helps to validate anything, but here it is.

View post on imgur.com

We’ve decided to move our sites to another hosting company that specializes better in WordPress sites. After further research, it’s becoming more apparent the company we’re currently using simply doesn’t have the capacity to handle them and it’s believed that’s the primary cause for this issue I’ve been having.