HTTP Error 500 That Made Me Loco For 3 Days
Almost Gave Up
It was the most frustrating moment so far I have experienced since I started blogging five months back. What happened was, this blog, etc.soundsfunny.ws suddenly went inaccessible. And I was like, what if all of the data are now gone? What if I have to start a new blog if the problem persists? I’ve tried accessing a hundred times but all I got was this error message.
I woke up yesterday contemplating what I am going to do with it. I have sent emails already to my host/server support but I have got no replies. I did some research too and I found out that this kind of error has to be fixed only by the website server.
And I have learned that this kind of error is considered one of the most serious errors since it involves the server. I was like, giving up. 🙁
It Pays To Be A Surfer, A Net Surfer
Good thing, I bumped into wikipedia’s “List of HTTP Status Codes” article. It says in the article that the first digit of the status code specifies one of five classes of response.
- 1xx Informational
Request received, continuing process.
This class of status code indicates a provisional response, consisting only of the Status-Line and optional headers, and is terminated by an empty line. Since HTTP/1.0 did not define any 1xx status codes, servers must not send a 1xx response to an HTTP/1.0 client except under experimental conditions. - 2xx Success
This class of status codes indicates the action requested by the client was received, understood, accepted and processed successfully. - 3xx Redirection
The client must take additional action to complete the request.
This class of status code indicates that further action needs to be taken by the user agent in order to fulfill the request. The action required may be carried out by the user agent without interaction with the user if and only if the method used in the second request is GET or HEAD. A user agent should not automatically redirect a request more than five times, since such re-directions usually indicate an infinite loop.- 403 Forbidden
The request was a legal request, but the server is refusing to respond to it. Unlike a 401 Unauthorized response, authenticating will make no difference. - 404 Not Found
The requested resource could not be found but may be available again in the future. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible.
- 403 Forbidden
- 4xx Client Error
The 4xx class of status code is intended for cases in which the client seems to have erred. Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server should include an entity containing an explanation of the error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. These status codes are applicable to any request method. User agents should display any included entity to the user. And below are the famous errors:
- 5xx Server Error
The server failed to fulfill an apparently valid request.
Response status codes beginning with the digit “5” indicate cases in which the server is aware that it has encountered an error or is otherwise incapable of performing the request. Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server should include an entity containing an explanation of the error situation, and indicate whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. Likewise, user agents should display any included entity to the user. These response codes are applicable to any request method.
The Phone Call
So I made a long distance call from Dubai to California and logged my issue once again. With just 2 phone rings, Fernando of Global Domains International (my server/host) answered, listened to my concerns and assured me a fix on it. Hours later, my etc.soundsfunny.com is back!
One lesson learned is that never to get discouraged right away, as they say, there’s always a solution to a problem.
For a non-IT expert like me, that 3 days without access to my blog was like a crazy thing to imagine. My hope now is that it won’t happen again.
Suggestions
What about you guys, perhaps you have something to share on measures to avoid such error that made my blog inaccessible; it would be much appreciated.
Thanks for reading! Cheers!
