500 Internal Server Error

The HTTP 500 status code means a server has encountered an error and is unable to fulfill the request.

5xx errors imply that the error originates from the server, and there’s nothing a client can do. It is a generic, catch-all status code that’s best used when there aren’t more specific codes available.

If you have managed applications/servers before, you probably encountered this code when botching web server config, having inadequate permission for a file, or inadvertently missing a bug in the code.

Since 500 Internal Server Error is a generic error, you have to do some investigation to get to the bottom of the issue. In most cases, you can identify the problem by checking application server logs (for example, Rails, Django, Laravel) or web server logs (for example, Nginx, Apache, Caddy).