Are you facing an “Internal Server Error” issue on your WordPress website? There could be multiple reasons for this issue. In this blog, I am going to share some of those possible reasons along with their solutions. You may try one of these solutions before contacting your web developer so that you can save some costs. Let’s start.
#1 .htaccess File
A corrupted .htaccess file could be the most possible reason for an internal server issue. Whenever you see the issue of “Internal Server Error” on your WordPress website, the first step you must take to fix the problem is to rename your .htaccess file and then check whether your website is able to load or not. You can rename your .htaccess file by accessing your web server through FTP or the control panel.
If the website loads fine after renaming of .htaccess file, then it was the .htaccess issue that caused the “Internal Server Error”.Since we are aware of the problem now, you can generate a new .htaccess file by going to Settings » Permalinks and clicking the save button.
#2 PHP Memory Limit
The second possible reason for an “Internal Server Error” could be the exhaust of the PHP memory limit. You can increase the memory limit by following these steps:
(i) Create a blank text file with the name php.ini
(ii) Paste this code in there: memory=64MB
(iii) Save the file
(iv) Upload inside /wp-admin/ folder using FTP
#3 WordPress Core Files
If #2 and #3 don’t work for you, you can consider replacing the existing core files of your WordPress folder with the default ones. Just download the fresh dump of WordPress and replace the core files on your server which should fix the issue of “Internal Server Error”.You can seek the assistance of your WordPress developer if required because this process may need some technical knowledge.
#4 Plugins
If none of the above solutions work for fixing the Internal Server Error, then you must consider renaming all the plugins and then try reloading your website. Due to some update or corruption in any of the plugins file, your website may start showing up with the issue of “Internal Server Error”.
As a WordPress designer, I also need to install and work on a lot of plugins which sometimes result in misconfiguration with the server and show error messages. So it’s a very common practice to test each plugin before you use it for your website.