PHPBB 500 internal server error

PHPBB has been giving me 500 internal server errors, recently, but I know my forum at 800 member is still relatively small. Looking at the MYSQL runtime information for that database, some numbers are in red, but I'm not sure what can be done about it. Does anyone have suggestions? Would more specific information from me be helpful?

What does your error log say?

emufarmers.com
Very little to do with either emus or farmers!

I hate to reveal my ignorance, but what are you referring to by "error log?"

When the server sends you "500 Internal Server Error" it isn't really telling you what's wrong, because that could help an attacker find a hole in your security; instead, the real reason your request failed is logged somewhere where the webmaster (you) can see it and track down the problem. The error log will be saved in /home/username/logs/domain.com/http.25xxxxx as a file called error.log.

There are plenty of things that could be causing errors: If you tell us what the log outputs (entries are timestamped), we might be able to tell you exactly what's wrong.

emufarmers.com
Very little to do with either emus or farmers!

In reply to:

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I hate to reveal my ignorance, but what are you referring to by "error log?"

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There is no reason to feel badly about admitting that you don't know about something; we all had to learn about this stuff somehow!

In your user directory (/home/yourusername), which is the directory you are placed in when you connect to your server via FTP or SSH, in addition to your domainname.tld directory/directories and your Maildir, you will find a directory named "logs".

Inside this directory you will find a directory with the same name as each of your domains. These directories contain other directories and symlinks to your http logs. In those directories you will find your log files (in various states and configurations). These are text and archive files containing log information from various times and in varying states for your webserver.

To review your error logs, find the appropriate "error.log" file (usually the most recent, if you are "actively testing", though it could be an older one if you are looking for an "older" error!) and view it (or download it for off-line viewing) to see what error messages were recorded for when you encountered the error. These are just text files that you can read with any editor.

What you are looking for is the entry that reflects the error you are receiving. I find the easiest way to do this is to run the program to get the error (and note the time), and then *immediately* inspect the last few entries of the log to identify the corresponding error message(s).

Posting these error message on the forum, or providing them to tech support) can greatly help in identifying the cause of the problem , in many instances.

There is a log more information about the structure of the information in the logs readily available on the web (just google for apache logs) , though most of the information in the logs is pretty self explanatory.

--rlparker

In reply to:

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The error log will be saved in /home/username/logs/domain.com/http.25xxxxx as a file called error.log.

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While your information is a lot more concise (more easily usable!) than mine (I *do* tend to ramble a bit ), the name of the actual directory containing the logs will vary from user to user.

Yours may be "http.25XXXX", though mine is "http:78571" - she might have a hard time finding an "http.25XXXX" directory in her logs dir.

--rlparker

In reply to:

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While your information is a lot more concise (more easily usable!) than mine (I *do* tend to ramble a bit ), the name of the actual directory containing the logs will vary from user to user.

Yours may be "http.25XXXX", though mine is "http:78571" - she might have a hard time finding an "http.25XXXX" directory in her logs dir.

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The numbers followed by Xs were meant to indicate a variable numeric value, just as "domain.com" is meant to indicate the user's own domain. I could have put the actual number, but if she tried to cd to that, she wouldn't have any luck either. (Additionally, I'd rather that people not know the exact location of my log files, on the off chance that another user on my server were still able to cd into the directory by knowing the exact path [even if he can't list the directory above].)

emufarmers.com
Very little to do with either emus or farmers!

In reply to:

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I'd rather that people not know the exact location of my log files, on the off chance that another user on my server were still able to cd into the directory by knowing the exact path [even if he can't list the directory above].)

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Good point, that! (which is why I obfuscated my own when I posted it ).

I just wanted her to not be confused if she couldn't find the directory.

--rlparker

You might find some good advice on this thread about phpBB and internal server errors: http://discussion.dreamhost.com/showflat.pl?Board=3rdparty&Number=72632

Just an fyi - 500 Internal Server error means PHP crashed. It's not like Perl where you might have some script errors here or there; it really means PHP exploded.

But, that doesn't discount the answer being within the logs.