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WordPress Error 500 on 1&1 Web Hosting

2 April 2009 12 Comments

Early this week one of my plugins had an upgrade available but when I clicked to upgrade automatically I received the following: Error 500 – Internal Server Error.  Didn’t give it much thought and tried to log into this site last night and after entering my credentials received the same error: now it was serious.

Searching for the error uncovered one possible fix indicating PHP is running out of memory.  To increase on an ISP that doesn’t give direct access to PHP is to create a PHP.INI file with this line as the only content:

memory=20MB

I did this and gained access back to my WordPress Dashboard.  Checked the plugins and still received Error 500 trying to update.  More searching gave another option: edit the .HTACCESS file and add the following line to force PHP5 usage instead of PHP4.

AddType x-mapp-php5 .php

This allowed the plugin to be upgraded.  I then removed the PHP.INI file and everything was still working well.

12 Comments »

  • warthpublishinginc said:

    I don’t think your problem is with WordPress but rather it is with 1and1. It is with good reason the Pennsylvania Better Business Bureau gives 1and1 their lowest rating: “F”
    Warth Publishing Inc

  • LoLyfe said:

    Interesting, I’ve been having this issue using 1&1 – however, try as I might, I cannot find a .htaccess file … where’s it supposed to be located?

  • admin (author) said:

    It’s in the root of your web space. I didn’t have one and had to create and upload it: if you need help check out .htaccess Editor.

  • Roger said:

    Thanks for the info. Got it working now.

  • Posicionamiento Web said:

    Thank you, you are the man!

    Other guy forgot to write about AddType x-mapp-php5 .php

    Regards!

  • caroline said:

    thank you so muccchhhh !
    I was desperate…

  • julio said:

    te lo agradezco mucho tenia ese problema que me estaba volviendo loco, pase 24 horas tratando de cambiar un dominio y solo era esa linea en el .htaccess.
    gracias men.

  • dels7080 said:

    Works like a charm! I have 1and1 for years and just started using WP. IT was bugging me to no end that every time I tried to configure anything in the WordPress dashboard I would get a Error 500! I also bumped up the cache to 32M described here:

  • dels7080 said:

    Correction, somehow my bumping up the cache to 32M messed things up. Stick with the php5 change above and all worked great!

  • Italo said:

    I had the error 500 on 1and1 linux server when trying to activate Another WordPress Classifieds Plugin and this suggestions here solved the problem. Thanks a lot!!

  • Preston said:

    I just tried your suggestion and it still doesn’t work. WordPress tries for a longer time to activate a new plugin but still no dice – 500 Server Error.

  • Martin said:

    Thanks for posting this article! 1and1 can be such a headache sometimes; their FAQ pages make it hard to find the necessary info…if they’ve even put it out there.

    When I did a search for “AddType x-mapp-php5 .php”, their page come up right away.

    Essentially, it says if you want to use PHP 5:

    Create a .htaccess file and place the following line AddType x-mapp-php5 .php in it…
    You can use AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php as an alternative for or instead of AddType x-mapp-php5 .php”

    Here’s the link to check out 1and1′s What do I need to consider if I want to use PHP 5?. (I would have exploded before I found that.)

    Thanks, again!
    Martin

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