Good day ... for the first time I am encountering random and occasional 500 Internal Server Errors. The site is hosted with a webhost I haven't used before - names.co.uk. The error has been thrown on different pages and has occurred on my laptop and not on my desktop and vice versa. So it is not consistent in any way. The client has mentioned it happening to them as well.

This is an example of a message from the error log that seems to refer to the error from my own ip address:

129.234.75.158 - - [21/Jan/2013:16:03:04 +0000] "GET /dev/how-to-join.php HTTP/1.1" 500 1347 "http://www.dorchesterchoralsociety.org/dev/about-us.php" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0"

and another example from the client

86.146.53.188 - - [21/Jan/2013:22:50:28 +0000] "GET /dev/sponsors-and-patrons.php HTTP/1.1" 500 1347 "http://www.dorchesterchoralsociety.org/dev/venues.php" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; YPC 3.2.0; TheFreeDictionary.com; GTB7.4; AskTbORJ/5.15.14.29495)"

The support team at names.co.uk have replied to me

The 500 error is being generated because of a scripting/coding issue on your PHP page. We do not support scripting/coding, be it static pages, or dynamic content. If your pages are creating error messages, you will need to troubleshoot this.

I don't know if this is unusually unhelpful or if that is to be expected. But I am stumped by this ...

Can anyone help? Thanks!

[KK]

Hi potato,

Random errors are always difficult to troubleshoot - one doesn't know where to begin from
Anyways, the scenario you report is pretty strange. Desktop or laptop - shouldn't really matter for script running server side.

Do you happen to have access to the error log of the web server? (if not maybe this is where your host could definitely help).
A study of it should give us a clue.
Do let me know if you require my help with it.

Thanks.

Thanks KK, when I asked names.co.uk about viewing error logs they referred me to the web.log file in the root folder of the website. I've now asked about seeing the web server error log - we'll see what happens. As you say random errors are the worst and why, at almost the same time, the same page would serve OK on the desktop and not on the laptop in the same building is beyond odd!

[KK]

I'm sure the error log will give us some clue.
In case you'd like me to take a look at it, do feel free to PM me the creds.

hi, I've been waiting to for a response re the web server error log and have been told by Namesco:

Currently your site is hosted on a shared hosting server with thousands of other sites. As such you will not have direct access to the server logs and filtering our all of the results for your site would take take much time for the system administrators.

So no more info coming from that direction.

If it's OK I'll PM you the site error log which contains examples of the 500 error, in case you can spot something useful. Thanks!

I am having trouble attaching the log to the PM - .txt .log .doc aren't allowed. Any suggestions?

[cheesypoof]

Many months ago I had an encounter with intermittent 500 errors:

[warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: error reading data from FastCGI server
[error] Premature end of script headers: index.php

Downgrading from PHP 5.3 to 5.2 resolved the issue. Your problem could be dissimilar, but I thought I would share my experience regardless.

That's quite disappointing the host will not grant you access to PHP error logs. Traffic logs in this instance are unlikely to provide anything of value. You could place the files in a zip archive.

Thanks! I've just enquired of Names.co.uk how to go about downgrading to PHP 5.2 - could be worth a try. These occasional and sporadic errors are tricky ... especially with an unhelpful web host. Perhaps this is to be expected on a cheap shared hosting package? This is the first time I've used this host (and only because the client was already with them) and the first time I've had this error - makes me suspect strongly it is something to do with the Names.co.uk set up.

[KK]

Hi Potato,

I had a look at the visit log that you attached but, as cheesypoof suspected, I am afraid there is little to be learnt about the problem in there.

You quoted your host as saying:

Currently your site is hosted on a shared hosting server with thousands of other sites..

Thousands!? Even discounting any exaggeration in the statement, if I were you, I'd ask the client to find a new host right away. The performance issue apart, it is simply a matter of time before any of those 'thousands' of other sites gets compromised and takes down all other sites (including your clients) co-hosted with it. And guess who gets to clean up the mess

Hi KK - sound advice - and especially so in relation to what I now know about the Zeus server (see http://www.couchcms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7348).

Thanks!