Title: backend 500 & 404 errors
Last modified: August 21, 2016
---
# backend 500 & 404 errors
* Resolved [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/)
* I’m getting the following 500 + 404 error:
* > 500 Internal Server Error
> The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration
> and was unable to complete your request.
> Please contact the server administrator, [support@xxxx.xxx](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/support@xxxx.xxx?output_format=md)
> and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have
> done that may have caused the error.
> More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
> Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an
> ErrorDocument to handle the request.
* It is happening ONLY under the following circumstances:
1. When I enter an incorrect username or password on the wp-login page
2. When I click on Dashboard/Updates (Dashboard/Home works fine)
3. When I click on Appearance/Theme (all other Appearance submenu items work fine).
4. Any other time an error occurs
* I am able to back out of the error page using my browser back button.
* I’m not sure exactly when this started, since I don’t use these particular pages
often. I think it was with an update of WordPress, possibly as long as a year
or more ago. Then again, it might just have started when I updated to 3.8.
* We are a small nonprofit. Our WordPress site is password protected for confidential
internal use, so I can’t post a URL. It was the first WordPress site I built
6 years ago, and I made a lot of modifications to the theme files (don’t yell
at me, I know better now). Therefore, I have not updated the theme since I built
it (which I figure is pretty low risk since a). the site is not indexed, and
b). there’s nothing that secret on it).
* I’m guessing something in the old version of the theme is no longer working with
the most recent versions of WordPress, but am hoping the symptoms above will
indicate which file(s) are affected so that someone more knowledgeable than I
can guide me in fixing just those files. I’m a part-time nonprofit employee,
and I really don’t have time to redo the theme modifications all over again,
or configure a new theme.
* The theme is Shades of Blue. It was last updated in 2009, and we may not have
the last version of it since I built the site in 2008.
* Can anyone help?
* P.S. – We only have one plugin, and its associated widget (Event Calendar), and
I have already tried disabling them both, which did not fix the problem.
Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
* [Pioneer Web Design](https://wordpress.org/support/users/swansonphotos/)
* (@swansonphotos)
* [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541285)
* > I am able to back out of the error page using my browser back button
* That indicates to me an issue with site caching either local or server.
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541430)
* I’m not sure what that means, or what to do with it.
* I updated to WordPress 3.8.1 to see if that would fix the problem. I had to do
it manually, as the updates page of my Dashboard is one of the pages I can’t
access. Wow, what a hassle compared to the one-click update! After updating,
I no longer got the 500/404 error when logging in with an incorrect username
or password. The logon page returned to its cute head-shaking behavior when incorrect
info is entered in either field.
* However, the update to 3.8.1 did not fix the errors when attempting to access
the Dashboard/Updates and Appearance/Themes pages. Furthermore, after the update,
my Plugins/Installed Plugins page also returned the 50/404 error, which was a
headache, since I had deactivated the plugins to do the manual update, and couldn’t
get to them to turn them back on. However, I was able to fix this by deleting
hello.php from the plugins directory (which is the only file I had added to that
directory during the WordPress update). Then I was able to access Plugins/Installed
plugins again and reactivate my plugins.
* Additional information:
* “500” does not actually appear in the title of the error page. I added it to “
Internal Server Error” because the browser tab shows “500 Internal Server Error”
as the page title.
* The URLs for the pages that return the 500/404 errors are:
* our_domain/subfolder/WordPress/wp-admin/update-core.php (Dashboard/Updates page)
* our_domain/subfolder/WordPress/wp-admin/themes.php
(Appearance/Themes)
* What do those two pages have in common that is not true of any other page in
the dashboard? Could really use some help from people who know more about this
than I do….
* BTW, my login userID no longer seems to be case sensitive. Is that new, or has
that always been true and I’m just now noticing it?
* [dharward](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dharward/)
* (@dharward)
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541471)
* I am having this exact same problem.
* I even went as far as doing brand new fresh install using the default theme and
no plugins I still get the same issue.
* This is so very weird.
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541473)
* I am curious what theme you are using? My older, not updated theme is one of
the suspects in my case.
* BTW, I am back to receiving the error on the login page if I enter the password
incorrectly (for awhile there it reverted to normal headshaking behavior, but
no longer, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t changed anything, this time).
* What’s more, I’m getting the error on the login page even when I enter the correct password. If I refresh the page (without re-entering the password),
it does log me in the second time. I don’t think it should be saving my entered
password info so that it’s still there for a page reload, should it? (Though
of course I’m glad I can log in to my dashboard).
* The only other person who has bothered to respond to this thread said something
about caching issues (which the above also sounds like, no?). Unfortunately,
that person did not elaborate, so I don’t really know what to do with that information.
* Please bear in mind, folks, that if we were programmers, we would probably not
need to post to this forum in the first place.
* [esmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/esmi/)
* (@esmi)
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541474)
* If you require assistance then, as per the [Forum Welcome](http://codex.wordpress.org/Forum_Welcome#Where_To_Post),
please post your own topic.
* Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
* (@ipstenu)
* 🏳️🌈 Advisor and Activist
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541477)
* What’s the content of the .htaccess file?
* (Use the code tags in the bar above the text box so it’ll be readable)
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541478)
* There are two, not sure which one you mean. The one at the same level as the
WordPress folder is the password protection one, I believe.
* > AuthUserFile [PATH] .htpasswd
> AuthGroupFile /dev/null AuthName [HIDING IT]
> AuthType Basic require valid-user
* The one in the level above the WordPress folder:
* > Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php5
> AddHandler php-cgi .php SetEnv DEFAULT_PHP_VERSION
> 5
* I think the php version is something our host had me put in.
* Moderator [Samuel Wood (Otto)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/otto42/)
* (@otto42)
* WordPress.org Admin
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541479)
* Is this site behind a firewall or proxy of any kind? Not just an htaccess based
password, but is it actually restricted from outgoing internet access?
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541480)
* No.
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541481)
* But our web host is primarily an ISP, so I think their directory structure is
a little different. I’ve already spoken to them. They said it was a WordPress
issue, but they don’t really know anything about WordPress. If I can identify
a problem on their end, they are usually pretty responsive, but I’m on my own
for figuring out what it is before I go to them. We’re a non-profit and get our
hosting free, so we can’t really complain!
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541482)
* Original poster here, still trying to fix this. I’ve been reading various troubleshooting
guides on this error, and they all refer to an htaccess file in the same directory
as the wp-content, wp-admin and wp-includes folders. I don’t have an htaccess
file there (a bunch of other places, but not there). Should I?
* I tried going to my permalinks setting in my dashboard and saving settings, which(
according to these same troubleshooting guides) supposedly generates a new and
correct htaccess file if you don’t already have one there, but nothing happened.
Still no htaccess file.
* [jeffjunior](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeffjunior/)
* (@jeffjunior)
* [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541483)
* The problem is wordpress and it’s happening anytime you update a theme to a newer
revision. I’m on wordpress 3.8.1 and I updated my WooCommerce Theme from 2.1.3
to 2.1.4 and 2.1.5 a day later. If you right click your mouse on your webpages
in wordpress and select “Inspect element – Console” you will see this error message:
event.returnValue is deprecated. Please use the standard event.preventDefault()
instead.
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (
Internal Server Error) [http://www.oneshopatatime.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php](http://www.oneshopatatime.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php).
<- This is a wordpress file that is blocking any attempt to change sql database
values using theme settings. This is only a problem after updating a Theme to
a newer revision.
* [jeffjunior](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeffjunior/)
* (@jeffjunior)
* [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541484)
* It’s not likely we will see a fix for the above problem anytime soon. If you
read back through the posts on the Wootique website, the same problem was being
reported over 6 years ago. The issue appears to be that when a Theme is being
installed, there are configuration parameter values that need to be provided
by the Theme Plugin to the WordPress installation manager. These values need
to be changed in the appropriate database and any cached registers dumped before
the install. All the values needed to make the interface between the new Theme
and WordPress work are either not being reported or they are being ignored or
they are being overwritten by cached values stored in some register that was
not dumped prior to the theme change. _ [advertising copy removed by moderator]_
* Thread Starter [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* (@factotum)
* [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541487)
* I finally found the problem. It was indeed in an htaccess file, which I had placed
in the directory above my WordPress installation back in 2011 under direction
from my webhost to force it to run php 5 instead of php 4 (which was my host’s
default php version at the time). Although my host now runs php 5.5, that file
was keeping it at php 5, which is now too low to run WordPress. I updated the
file (which I did by changing 5 to 55, NOT 5.5, in case anyone else needs to
do this), and the problem was finally fixed.
* Thanks to everyone who tried to help me with this!
Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
The topic ‘backend 500 & 404 errors’ is closed to new replies.
## Tags
* [404-error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/404-error/)
* [500 error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/500-error/)
* In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
* 14 replies
* 7 participants
* Last reply from: [factotum](https://wordpress.org/support/users/factotum/)
* Last activity: [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/backend-500-404-errors/#post-4541487)
* Status: resolved
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