Random 500 server errors....

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:42 am

Hi Guys;

can't post in 7.6 forum.. (site is patched as well)

I've not hcnaged anything in server config, system config, etc. Trying to get the hosts to advise me if theyt've changed anything site wide....

Problem mainly "rears its head" when you try to access the gallery on my site; it throws a curve ball and error 500.

Log files advise
[Tue Nov 03 10:11:15 2009] [error] [client 65.55.209.148] client denied by server configuration: /home/XXXXX/public_html/modules.php

If I access the gallery directly (not as part of nuke) it works ok....

I also get these errors randomly when using the forums; sometimes we "post" and it gives a 500 error; hit "back" on the browser, then "submit" and it posts.....

Any ideas? (I'm starting to get a sore head banging it against the desk and anything else in the vicinity hard enough, like walls.. Laughing

)

Brief site details:
7.6 patched nuke
dis errors installed
gallery v1.5.5-pl1
Apache 2.2.11 (Unix)
Php version: 5.2.9
Sentinel version 2.5.13 (telling me it needs updating- another task for this week!)

Cheers

Andy

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:52 am

Ask the hosts if they have changed anything in mod_security. Check your logs for when the errors occur too.

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:10 am

cheers for the reply; the above was taken from the error log directly after I did the attempt (so I could post it in here)
Will ask them to take a look;

appreciated.

Andy

Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:17 am

so I sent the hosts the information given;

here is some additional info from the site:
Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.7a mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Phusion_Passenger/2.0.4 Server at www.audifans.net Port 80

Also, I check my (old) thread here:
http://www.ravenphpscripts.com/posts17888-highlight-.html

this isn't an issue.

I also tried removing the .htaccess file last night, and rechecked- still the same problem. Something tells me it's definitely something the hosts have done on the configuration somewhere.....

registered · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:01 am

I have seen mod_security throw both 406 error codes (the most common) as well as 500. Unfortunately, if you do not own the server (i.e., on a shared hosting plan), it can be very difficult to resolve these kinds of things. Hopefully your host will be responsive.

On my server, I keep my mod_security rules up-to-date from gotroot.com to try and reduce the number of these types of issues, but I am certain that I am still getting them from time-to-time... the cost of security and spam prevention unfortunately.

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:49 pm

sorted now, thanks.

I had a quick phone call with one of the directors tonight; several things happened- their licences were cancelled by Red Hat, and some updates to Apache didn't quite work... apparently quite a few customers were "hit" (although they hadn't changed server configuration"....

I'll be having "words" with them tomorrow... I've got a 99.9% uptime SLA- even though the site was operational, to a point (wasn't just galleries affected), it's not quite "good enough"- they're a good bunch, mind, and I've only had 3 "issues" with them in about 5 years...

Cheers for everybody's input Wink

Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 6:23 pm

AndyB wrote:

their licences were cancelled by Red Hat

That does not sound good. I sure hope it is not an early indicator of a financial problem on the web host's part. Can, of course, also be a mistake.

Theme Guru Joined: Jan 11, 2006 Posts: 170

I'm having a similiar problem. I updated 2 websites and now when I go to the forums and click on any topic I get a 500 error message. I thought I was pretty savvy but I have tried everything that's suppose to work but it's not.

I disabled the forums so that visitors wouldn't go to them. I run my own server and checked the mod_security and everything is fine there. I manage 2 other sites and do not get any errors on them.

I'm scratching my head over this one. If anyone has experienced this problem please post.

Oh, by the way, I have uploaded RN 4.0 files again and that didn't help. I also ran a backup to the database files on one site without solving the problem there either.

Thanks Mike

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:17 am

This is only happening in the forums? The entire rest of the site is working just fine? Looks for any .htaccess file within the modules/Forums directories and rename them to see if the issue is there.

Another thing to consider is if this was an upgrade, you may need to also remove some files that we have either gotten rid of or moved. I would suggest comparing your site files to the distribution using a really good comparison tool such as Beyond Compare 3 (well worth the money).

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:37 am

Yes, it is happening only in the forums. I did look at the .htaccess files but I could have missed something, knowing me.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give them a try.

Mike

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:46 am

papamike, as I am not sure if the error is exactly the same, would you please post the exact message here in the forums (but edit out any path information). Thanks.

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:01 pm

I compared the directories, using Filezilla, and there were a few mis-matches, not many. That didn't help so I changed the $display_errors in the config.php to true and got this error.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function mb_internal_encoding() in /home/xxxxxxxx/public_html/includes/class.autokeyword.php on line 113

That is where I stopped.

Thanks Montego for your help.

Mike

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:36 pm

http://www.ravenphpscripts.com/posts18404-highlight-mbinternalencoding.html

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:05 pm

Your link doesn't match the problem I am having. I manage websites and I only have two sites that is experiencing this problem. The rest are ok. It isn't in my opinion a server problem. I do manage my own server.

Oh by the way, I did search the forums before I posted. Please read the entire post.

Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:41 am

I did read the entire topic. You posted saying:

Quote:

I compared the directories, using Filezilla, and there were a few mis-matches, not many. That didn't help so I changed the $display_errors in the config.php to true and got this error.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function mb_internal_encoding() in /home/xxxxxxxx/public_html/includes/class.autokeyword.php on line 113

That is where I stopped.

So I would say that is where you would want to start solving this problem, and the link I provided describes or has links that describe why a person may get this error.

mb_internal_encoding() is an internal php function. It requires that PHP be compiles the php_mbstring.dll extension.

If that isn't the answer you were looking for I must be missing something.

Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:32 am

Here is what I have found thus far: First I must say that I didn't include this in my first post (my error) Sad

I have another site which I upgraded at the same time as the problem sites and it works fine.

Quote:

mb_internal_encoding() is an internal php function. It requires that PHP be compiles the php_mbstring.dll extension.

This much I know. And I checked that prior to posting.

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.mb-internal-encoding.php deals with character encoding, thus the mb extension needs to be compiled (turned on) for it to work. This is set properly within my PHP configuration. I double checked this.

I checked and tested the .htaccess files as was mentioned by Montego:

Quote:

Looks for any .htaccess file within the modules/Forums directories and rename them to see if the issue is there.

Didn't solve the problem

I checked mod_security and tested it for error reporting. Everything was ok there but I didn't really expect for it not to be since I have one site that works fine.

I am running php5.

Can anyone identify anything I may have missed?

Thanks,

Mike

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:02 am

Ok, I fixed my problem. I had one site Version 4.0 that was working fine. I then setup a test site and it displayed the 500 error. So I now had 2 sites displaying the 500 error. I uploaded the files from the site that was running without error to the 2 sites that had the errors. That fixed both sites. I made an attempt at trying to identify the file that was causing the error but couldn't.

I will attempt to find it tomorrow.

Mike

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:03 pm

I found the source of the error I was having with the 505 errors. It was in the header.php file and the cause was code I placed in the file. Once I corrected the error I have had no problems.

I didn't upload the header.php file on my main site so I wasn't having a problem there but in the test site and the client site I uploaded the new header.php file and copy/pasted the code in the file. I had 1 error in my code and corrected it.

Mike

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:35 am

Glad you found it. Lesson learned: if you make changes to something and then you have errors, it is usually with what you changed. Wink

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 1:48 pm

Yep that's true Montego. Regardless of how seasoned a coder is everyone is subject to eventually making a small mistake that could take alot of time to track down especially when a person makes several changes at once. I've learned that it's the small mistakes that will get you in the end.

Thanks,

Mike

Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 9:52 am

Unfortunately I do this more often than I would like. Wink