Are you seeing 500 internal server error in WordPress? It is a very general HTTP status code that means something has gone wrong on the web site’s server but the server could not be more specific on what the exact problem is.
Internal server error in WordPress is often caused by plugin or theme malfunction. Other possible causes of internal server error in WordPress that we know of are: corrupted .htaccess file and PHP memory limit.
Resolution Possibilities
- Checking for Corrupt .htaccess File
- Increasing the PHP Memory Limit
- Deactivate all Plugins
- Ask your Hosting Provider
Checking for Corrupt .htaccess File
The first thing you should do when troubleshooting the internal server error in WordPress is check for the corrupted .htaccess file. You will need to login to your site using FTP or File Manager app in your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard then rename your main .htaccess file to something like .htaccess_old
Next step, make sure that you go to Settings » Permalinks page in WordPress admin area and click the save button without making any changes. This will generate a new .htaccess file for you with proper rewrite rules to ensure that your post pages do not return a 404 error.
Now you try visiting your site to see if this solved the problem. If it did, then give yourself a pat on the back because you fixed the internal server error.
Increasing the PHP Memory Limit
Sometimes internal server error can happen if you are exhausting your PHP memory limit. Use our tutorial on how to increase PHP memory limit in WordPress to fix that.
If increasing the PHP memory limit did not fix the issue for you then try next solution.
Deactivate all Plugins
Simply go to the WordPress admin area and click on ‘Plugins’. Now you need to deactivate all plugins at a time then reactivate one by one until you find the one that caused the issue. Get rid of that plugin, and report the error to the plugin author.
Ask your Hosting Provider
If all methods fail to fix internal server error on your website, then it is time to get some more help. Contact your web hosting support team and they will be able to check the server logs and locate the root cause of the error.