WordPress 500 Internal Server Error Fix
A 500 error is the server telling you something went wrong without saying what. The actual detail is in the error log, and reading it turns a mystery into a specific file and line.
Price confirmed after a quick look, before any work starts. If your case is more involved, you get a revised quote to approve — never a surprise invoice.
- Typical turnaround
- Same day
- Guarantee
- 14 days
- Fixed-price quote first
- Root-cause fix, not a band-aid
- 14-day correction guarantee
Symptoms I see with this.
If any of these describe what you're looking at, this is the right fix. If you're not sure, describe it and I'll point you at the right one.
- 500 Internal Server Error on some or all pages
- It started after an update, an edit or a host change
- wp-admin errors while the front end works, or vice versa
- Intermittent 500s under traffic
What usually causes it.
In roughly the order I check them. Knowing the likely causes is what makes a fix fast rather than exploratory.
Broken .htaccess
An invalid directive — often from a caching or security plugin — makes Apache refuse the request entirely. Restoring a clean .htaccess resolves it immediately.
PHP fatal error
Same underlying cause as a white screen, but with the server configured to return 500 rather than an empty page. The log identifies the file and line.
Exhausted resources
Memory or process limits reached, particularly on shared hosting under traffic. Intermittent 500s almost always mean this rather than broken code.
Wrong file permissions or ownership
Files that PHP cannot read, or that are group-writable in a way the server rejects. Common after a manual upload or a bad restore.
What the job includes.
- Server and PHP error logs read to find the true cause
- Cause fixed at the source
- .htaccess validated and cleaned if that was the trigger
- Resource limits and permissions checked
- Verification across front end and wp-admin
- 14-day correction guarantee
Questions, answered.
Why does the error page tell me nothing?
Because production servers deliberately hide error detail from visitors. The detail exists in the server log, which is where diagnosis starts.
It only happens sometimes. Is that harder to fix?
Different, not harder. Intermittent 500s point at resource limits under load rather than broken code, and the fix is a capacity or efficiency change.
Could this be a hack?
Occasionally — injected malicious code can cause fatal errors. I check for indicators of compromise as part of the diagnosis.
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From $39Let's get it fixed.
Send the symptoms, when it started, and what changed just before. You'll get a straight answer and a fixed price — usually the same day.
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