Troubleshoot 500 errors
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Internal Server Error.
The 500 HTTP status code indicates an internal server error on your App. Most are caused by code or configuration issues and are easily debugged from your logs.
- 500 errors will usually be shown on screen immediately
- 500 errors often occur after code or configuration changes
- 500 errors are sometimes just printed as a "service unavailable" message, check the browser's developer tools for the response's HTTP status code to be sure this is indeed a 500 error
- 500 errors here are often rendered using a fortrabbit error page template
In most cases this is not a server issue, but something with your code and configuration. Good news: they are mostly easy to debug:
Check the logs
Examine the logs of your App. See here. There you'll likely find where the application exited with which error.
Review your latest changes
Since 500 errors often appear during installation, setup or code changes: Review your code and configuration changes. Compare this with your local development environment and see if it fails the same way. Have you run an update recently?
Check your .htaccess file
Our experience in support shows us that many 500 errors are caused by wrong rules in your .htaccess file. See our main article on .htaccess for some background. Have you made any changes to .htaccess lately?
Apache error-log signatures
The Apache error log names the specific cause with an AHxxxxx code. Behind a 500, look for:
See Apache error codes for the full list.
It could also be something on our side
It is also possible — although less likely — that this error is caused by a network, hardware or configuration issue on our side, your hosting provider. Please check our status page under status.fortrabbit.com if there are any ongoing maintenance windows or service issues known.