Troubleshoot 500 errors
The 500 HTTP status code means "Internal Server Error". This article aims to help developers troubleshooting 500 errors.
500 error behavior
- 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
Common reasons and solutions
In most cases this is not a server issue, but something with your code and configuration. Good news is that they are mostly easy to debug for you:
Check the logs
Examine the logs of your App. See here for Uni Apps and here for Pro Apps. 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 ran 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?
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.
Contacting support
Whether your investigation (see above) leads to possible service issues on our side or you are stuck debugging the issue on your own, don't hesitate to contact us.
Please include logs and additional information with your support request.