WordPress.org

1. lone walker
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Hi

   For some unknown reason my WordPress site is dead. It gives me 500 Internal Server Error and I've tried all the fixes suggested for this problem on this site. I've also spoken to my ISP and they are less than helpful.

   I think my last resort is to re-install.

   I have full FTP access and phpmyadmin access to the database.

   I have all my articles stored in my writer, but my last backup was a long time ago and I'd hate to lose all the comments and replies and pages etc that make up the rest of the site.

   Is there anyway I can re-install a blank version of WordPress and still maintain my data? Or is it possible to install a new version alongside and import all my old data?

   Any help appreciated.
   Thanks

2. WP Hosting Australia
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Hi lone walker,

   Have you tried resetting your .htaccess file? "Settings" -> "Permalinks" -> "Default"

   And de-activating plugins?

   If that doesn't work, then yes you can save all your posts and data.

   - Take a backup of all the public_html files via FTP to your computer
   - Delete all the files in public_html
   - Upload a fresh copy of WordPress
   - Upload your wp-config.php <- contains the database settings
   - Upload your wp-content folder (or the uploads folder and the themes/plugins you wish to keep)

   Then you should be able to view your site and login to the admin.

3. lone walker
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Hi

   I have no .htaccess file and I've renamed the plugins directory and the custom style I was using - neither made any difference. I have no access to the admin GUI either.

   My wp-content folder is massive - probably over 1Gb - I have a huge number of photos in there and not only would it take me an age to download, it would take forever to get them all back up again.

   Is there no way I can avoid this? Can I upload the fresh copy of WordPress but without the wp-content folder?

   Thanks
   LW

4. WP Hosting Australia
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Sure you can try keeping your wp-content folder and just replace everything else.

   It might also be a good idea to check any error logs via ftp, hosting control panel or by asking your host.

   Do you use "pretty urls"? If so, I imagine you would have a .htaccess file but your ftp client can't see them. Try setting the ftp client to view hidden files.

5. lone walker
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Hi WPHA - thanks for the help with this...

   My error log is full of....

   FastCGI: comm with (dynamic) server "/var/www/fcgi/php-cgi" aborted: (first read) idle timeout (30 sec)

   most of which are followed by

   FastCGI: incomplete headers (0 bytes) received from server "/var/www/fcgi/php-cgi"

   I run several websites and my FTP client will see .htaccess files where I use them - not sure what pretty urls are so I guess I'm not using them?

   Do you think the size of the wp-content folder could be anything to do with the 500 server error?

   The site is a walking journal and each entry is a record of one walk, with lots of photos and narrative - I've had to reduce the number of posts on the front page to just two as the load time is very long with any more than this - so far I've been linking by default to the full size photo with a 650(ish) thumbnail in the actual post. Hence the size of the wp-content folder - it has several hundred 2-3Mb files in it, as well as all the thumbnails.

6. WP Hosting Australia
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Ok, this almost looks as if it's an issue on the server, something either PHP or resource related perhaps.

   I would send those logs to your host and get them to take a look.

   I have heard of a couple of hosts with this issue in the past, but have never seen it myself so don't have an exact answer, sorry!

   I would be interested in the hosts comments and resolution so please update this post, I'll keep an eye on it :)

7. lone walker
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I did send the extracts I posted above, to the ISP and they suggested it was a script timeout issue and asked me to reset CGI scripts through my control panel. I did this and it had no effect.

   I've replied to them and still waiting for another response. I don't really hold out much hope of a resolution from them - they state that they won't support third party apps and I guess they'll use that clause to limit their resource allocation to this issue.

   I have two other WordPress sites running with the same ISP (hosted for friends), different MySQL databases and different sub-domains and they're both ok.

   I'll post back if they do come back to me - thanks for your help so far.

8. WP Hosting Australia
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I've done a bit more research and it's starting to look server related. I've seen a number of posts online just like this one.

   ie) http://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-500-internal-server-error-with-fasthost?replies=4

   It's not really a matter of the host supporting 3rd party scripts, it that the server itself may have an issue and this needs to be explored.

   Are the other sites on the same server? Ping each site and see if the IP is the same. If your site is on a different server and they say it's not the issue, see if they'll move your site to another one for testing.

   Good luck! :)

9. lone walker
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   thanks for that - I've emailed my ISP (also Streamline.net funnily enough) with a link to that post :)

10. lone walker
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    I've still not received anything back from Streamline, but they've now issued a service status outage for the MySQL server that this blog runs on. Fingers crossed that'll be the cause of all these issues.

11. WP Hosting Australia
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    Any luck? 4 days down time kinda sucks :(

12. lone walker
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    I finally got a response from Streamline yesterday afternoon - they said they couldn't find any problem - despite a service status outage on my database server (which is still there). However, the site is back up and running - and seems faster than it used to be too :)

    Thanks for your troubleshooting assistance on this - much appreciated!

13. WP Hosting Australia
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    Pleasure, glad you got it sorted.

    Would have been nice to know the cause to stop the same thing occurring the the future though! :)

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