PHP parse error causes 500 server error

  • Resolved miettine

    (@miettine)


    8 years, 2 months ago

    Hello,

    One day our WordPress-app stopped working. Both the admin-view and the visitor’s view started showing HTTP ERROR 500.

    I happen to be a software developer, but my understanding about servers and the WordPress-application is limited.

    The website is for an organization that I am a apart of. We have lost contact to the person who originally set up our website. Troubleshooting this issue now falls to me.

    Every time the site is visited, this error is printed to the error log:

    [02-Apr-2018 17:42:45 UTC] PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘*’ in /home/[censored]/public_html/wp/wp-includes/load.php on line 580

    The error gets logged only when visiting the main website. The error does not get logged when attempting to visit the admin-view.

    This is the line that the error message is pointing to (the 580th line):

    if ( $wp_filter )

    Here is the entire function:

    https://pastebin.com/4CZshCYS

    The word press version we are running is 4.9.4. I looked it up from version.php

    I have ran many fix attempts. All of the fixes in this article made no difference:

    https://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/topic/http-error-500-internal-server-error-21/

    I ran the htacess fix, disabling themes and disabling plugins.

    I tried uploading new wp-includes and wp-admin from a clean install of word press, as this article suggested:

    http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-internal-server-error-in-wordpress/

    Of course, I can’t promise if I have done all of the fixes correctly. I can try them again on upcoming days, if needed. My service provider is vlexoFree (I believe). They provide a cPanel interface, but I’m not very good at using it. I even failed at trying to find the server version :/. I will add more information to this thread later.

    I am not certain what to do next. I would be very grateful if someone could offer advice. Thank you.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • wowpress.host

    (@wowpresshost)

    8 years, 2 months ago

    You write like your application was working for a long time, but suddently stopped. Looks like an autoupdate attempt (especially since 4.9.4 is the latest actual version).

    In that case autoupdate failed and some “*” from a comment started to be parsed as non-comment.
    Restoring your files from a backup should help in that case.

    Thread Starter miettine

    (@miettine)

    8 years, 1 month ago

    I am sorry for forgetting to respond to this thread.

    I believe that we do not have backups available. I hired someone to fix the site because I did not have the skill myself. The person I hired fixed the site by making a clean install of wordpress.

    I’m not sure why it worked that time, and why my attempt to make a clean install made no difference. I must have missed some important step that I am not aware of.

    The site’s plugins were corrupted, and apparently lost now with the clean install. Sadly, this means that the site’s appearance is no longer what it used to be. We shall see if our service provider has a backup available, or if we could restore the site’s appearance by hand.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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