WooCommerce Storefront Theme Creates 500 Server Error

An internal server error can happen with any website running on a web server. This means that it is not specific to WordPress sites alone. However, due to its generic nature, this error does not tell the developer anything.

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It is very hard to fix this error because you will not know where the problem is. The 500 internal server error is often caused by plugin or theme functions. Moreover, it can be caused by a corrupted .htaccess file and PHP memory limit.

WooCommerce Storefront Theme Creates 500 Server Error

Additionally, this error can appear when you are trying to access the admin area while the rest of the site works fine.

That being said, in this post I am going to share how you can troubleshoot the internal server error in your WooCommerce store.

Checking if the .htaccess File is Corrupt

When troubleshooting the internal server error, the first thing that you should check is if the .htaccess file is corrupted.

To do this, you need to rename your main .htaccess file to something like .htaccess_old. For you to rename this file, you need to login to your site using the FTP or File Manager app in your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard.

The .htaccess file will be located in the same directory where you will see folders like wp-content, wp-admin, and wp-includes.

After renaming the .htaccess file, try visiting your site to see if this solved the problem. If it did, then you have fixed the internal server error.

However, you need to make sure that you go to Settings > Permalinks page in the WordPress admin area and click the save button without making any changes. This will generate a new .htaccess file for you with proper rewrite rules to ensure that your post pages do not return 404 errors.

If this solution did not work for you, then you need to continue reading this article.

Increase the PHP Memory Unit

If the first solution did not work, you could check if you are exhausting your PHP memory limit. This can be done by editing the wp-config.php file. Paste this code in the wp-config.php file just before the line says, ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );

Save your changes and upload your wp-config.php file back to your server.

However, you should note that this solution will not work for you if your web hosting service provider does not allow WordPress to increase the PHP memory limit.

Alternatively, you should increase the memory limit by following these steps:

First, create a blank text file called php.ini.
After that, paste this code in there: memory=64MB
Save the file
Upload it into your /wp-admin/ folder using FTP

This solution will fix the internal server error for the admin side.

However, if this solution works for you, it means that you have only fixed the problem temporarily. This means that you still need to find the cause that is exhausting your memory limit.

It can be caused by a poorly coded plugin or even a theme function. Moreover, you can ask your WordPress web hosting company to look into the server logs to help you find the exact diagnostics.

Deactivating the Plugins

If the solutions I have shared did not work, then this error is most likely caused by a specific plugin. Additionally, it may be caused by a combination of plugins that are not playing nice with each other.

However, there is no easy way out. The only solution is deactivating all the plugins in your WooCommerce site.

To do this, connect to your website using FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. Once connected, you need to navigate to the /wp-content/ folder.

Inside this folder, you will see a folder called plugins. Right-click on the plugins folder and select Rename. Rename it to something like “plugins.deactivate.”

After doing that, all the plugins will be deactivated.

They will be deactivated because WordPress looks for a folder called plugins to load the plugin files. If it does not find this folder, it automatically disables the active plugins in the database.

If you visit the Plugins page in the WordPress admin area, you will see this:

After doing that, you need to reactivate one plugin at a time until you find the one that caused the issue.

Re-uploading Core Files

If deactivating the plugins did not work, it is worth re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folder from a fresh WordPress install. It is worth mentioning that this will NOT remove any of your information, but it may solve the problem if any file was corrupted.

After installing the WordPress zip file, connect to your WordPress website using an FTP client. Once connected, go to the root folder of your site. This is the folder that contains wp-admin, wp-includes, and wp-content folders.

Select wp-includes and wp-admin folders and then right-click and select ‘Upload.’

This action will allow you to transfer those folders to your server. This will allow you to replace your older WordPress files with newer fresh copies.

Conclusion

In this post, I have shared different ways that you can use to remove the internal server error in your WooCommerce store. The first method involves checking if the .htaccess is corrupted. If this solution does not work, try to increase the PHP memory limit. Alternatively, you can deactivate all the plugins, as I have shown you. If this does not work, try to re-upload the core files.

If all the methods fail, then it is time to get some more help. Please contact your web hosting support team, and they will be able to check the server logs. They can locate the root cause of the error.

Editorial Staff

How to Fix WooCommerce Storefront Theme Internal 500 Server Error

WooCommerce Storefront Theme Creates 500 Server Error

Checking if the .htaccess File is Corrupt

Increase the PHP Memory Unit

Deactivating the Plugins

Re-uploading Core Files

Conclusion

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