Page not found/500 Internal Server Error/Content Encoding Error/HTTP error

Internal server errors (error 500) are often caused by plugin or theme function conflicts, so if you have access to your admin panel, try deactivating all plugins. If you don’t have access to your admin panel, try manually resetting your plugins (no Dashboard access required). If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

If that does not resolve the issue, try switching to the Twenty Seventeen theme to rule-out a theme-specific issue. If you don’t have access to your admin panel, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the default theme to activate and hopefully rule-out a theme-specific issue.

If that does not resolve the issue, it’s possible that a .htaccess rule could be the source of the problem. To check for this, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and rename the .htaccess file. If you can’t find a .htaccess file, make sure that you have set your SFTP or FTP client to view invisible files.

If you weren’t able to resolve the issue by either resetting your plugins and theme or renaming your .htaccess file, we may be able to help, but we’ll need a more detailed error message. Internal server errors are usually described in more detail in the server error log. If you have access to your server error log, generate the error again, note the date and time, then immediately check your server error log for any errors that occurred during that specific time period. If you don’t have access to your server error log, ask your hosting provider to look for you.

I’m already using the Twenty Seventeen theme. Interestingly, no error log has been generated. There is a “logs” directory but it only contains an alias to http. I tried to look at it and I got a message that my “FTP encountered an error accessing a file or folder”. The server responded: “http: No such file or directory”. (I’m on Dreamhost–maybe they don’t let us see the error logs?) The .htaccess file is the generic one with only the following contents:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

# Wordfence WAF
<Files ".user.ini">
<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
	Require all denied
</IfModule>
<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
	Order deny,allow
	Deny from all
</IfModule>
</Files>

# END Wordfence WAF

It had permissions of 644 so I just changed that to 444 to see if that helps.
Some of the full messages:
Note: Just before I got this one, I noticed that the mdashs in the columns of the list of posts all had a€” a€” a€” a€” Last Modified
Problem Loading Page
Content Encoding Error

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
Try again.
After returning to the list of posts, the mdashes were back. Usually, I just get a brief glimpse of an edited page and then it jumps me back to the full list of Posts.

Just got this one around 7:55 a.m.
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] 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.

There is no error log file in the directory.

Access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and rename the .htaccess file to anything (like just htaccess without the dot). This is the only real way to rule-out .htaccess as the problem, as it will stop the server from using the file.

If that doesn’t work, you will need to contact your hosting provider’s support department. A visible 500 error will absolutely record to an error log somewhere. You may be looking in the wrong the place (changing where the logs are recorded is popular amongst hosting providers), or the log may only be accessible to the hosting provider.

Again, you’ll need the error log entry from the specific date/time you saw the 500 in your browser. So, to simplify matters, simply cause the error to happen again, and look for that date/time (or include it in your report to your hosting provider’s support department).

Hi,

I renamed the .htaccess file to .htaccess old and tried to go to the site pages. Now everything generates a 404 Not Found on this server.

I’ve re-enabled it and contacted Dreamhost.

You’re expected to get a 404 without a .htaccess as that is what lets your permalinks look pretty ??

Have you tried removing the Wordfence WAF stuff and see if the site works without Wordfence?

I heard back from Dreamhost and they told me what they see in the error logs. There was a plugin I’ve been using for years by modifying it to work with WordPress changes. It has a deprecated function that I don’t know how to fix so I am not going to use it anymore–will work out a different approach for what it used to do for the site. I deactivated it and deleted it. Dreamhost said that I was timing out to complete tasks because of too many active plugins. I deactivated several plugins that were not being used currently on the development of the new site. Some are for migrating the site and database to a new location so I’ll need them for that and then delete them. That helped with all the timeouts for everything.

The site sped up after deactivating the plugins. I am still getting all the same errors but less frequently. Dreamhost suggested that I install a plugin to do caching. I installed WP Fastest Cache and it is a lot easier to use than other caching plugins I’ve tried. It has links I can use to clear cache easily so before I save or try to view an edited page or post, I delete the cache and get less errors that way.

I think things will improve after I move the site and delete the migration plugins and some others I won’t need anymore. But from all the other posts I’ve seen from people who are also encountering 500 internal server errors, pages not found, etc. it seems that the new WordPress is consuming more CPU than it used to. I have kept use of Jetpack modules to just three or four that I find very useful. The others can eat up a lot of CPU.

I definitely do not want to remove Wordfence. It keeps the site clean and secure. I am currently using the free version while in dev mode so it doesn’t do any scans while I’m working on the site. Will active the PRO key when I move the site over.

My recommendation to deactivate WordFence was to test and see if it was causing the problems. You have to be willing to try things out when debugging ??

it seems that the new WordPress is consuming more CPU than it used to.

Right. So when that happens, turn things off. I mean this sincerely. You gotta turn stuff off to see what’s consuming the CPU ?? WordFence and Jetpack can be hogs.

If you’re using DreamHost’s extra web security, it has a firewall built in which is more robust than any plugin. Also it keeps the load off of WordPress, since it does the scans without loading WP.

I cannot access wordpress from the back end to fix this problem. http error 500