Inconsistent Internal Server Error 500 on drupal install on some pages

can u attach the error log here?

Thanks for the reply...

I would love to but because my website is on a shared hosting account with GoDaddy i can not access the server's error log.  

or

Are you referring to a different error log?

ftp to your site and check if you have a folder called logs, their has to be an error log,
if you can't find one, use the control panel they have provided to get error log.
it is a log  created by apache.

i am finding no error, or log files or folders in my FTP directories.
neither am i finding any such logs in the GoDaddy hosting manager.

In drupal there are access logs, error logs, etc.  However the only way i know to view these are via the web interface after logging in as the ADMIN.  The admin pages, however, are the pages that give the internal server error, so this will not work to view the error logs.

...perhaps i can find an error log table in the database.  I'll look into that and get back to you asap.

also, i'd be willing to grant someone temporary FTP access to the PHP files if you have enough time to commit to this

check this article http://help.godaddy.com/article/1198 and see if you can find the location of error log

Thanks.

After going to that exact part of the hosting control panel mentioned in the Article, there is no option marked "error logs."  

That article says "NOTE: This article only applies to Deluxe and Premium hosting accounts running Hosting Configuration 2.0."
HOW STUPID, i guess i have to pay extra just for some error logs!?
Unfortunately i have GoDaddy's Economy Hosting account.  I can not believe they would exclude error logs from this.  How rediculous.  Is my only option to upgrade to a more expensive hosting plan just so i generate more internal server 500 errors to log them?

I wont hesitate to call them and complain about this or request some sort of error log information.

I have to turn in for tonight but i will be back in touch tomorrow. thanks again for your responses!

to save time, I guess you should send them an email to get the error log location. I don't think they will hide it it should be there even in very cheap hosts.

let me know when you get a response from them.

check this link http://help.godaddy.com/article/2372 can you find anything?

and to do some tests, try to rename .htaccess files, does it work when renamed?

thanks for your responses.  I talked to them again.  Again they said that it is "ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE" for me to view any sort of server or system error logs for my website, unless it is on a dedicated server.

thus i have been doing some tests.  I did try renaming the .htaccess files,  i also tried deleting it completely (led to highly undesired results), i also tried replacing it with a fresh .htaccess file from the drupal 6.4 download from drupal's website.  All these had no effect on getting rid of the internal server error when view the admin page(s).

Thus, i believe it must have to do with some file, or included file, or scripting error in a theme file or something somewhere.  I can't for the life of me think of a related significant file i may have edited to make this happen, however, i'm trying to do tests to narrow it down.  I'll let you know how they turn out.

Do you agree?

Do you have any other ideas?

Thanks for your help

here's what my current .htaccess file looks like:
#
# Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
#

# Protect files and directories from prying eyes.
<FilesMatch "\.(engine|inc|info|install|module|profile|po|sh|.*sql|theme|tpl(\.php)?|xtmpl)$|^(code-style\.pl|Entries.*|Repository|Root|Tag|Template)$">
  Order allow,deny
</FilesMatch>

# Don't show directory listings for URLs which map to a directory.
Options -Indexes

# Follow symbolic links in this directory.
Options +FollowSymLinks

# Make Drupal handle any 404 errors.
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php

# Force simple error message for requests for non-existent favicon.ico.
<Files favicon.ico>
  ErrorDocument 404 "The requested file favicon.ico was not found.
</Files>

# Set the default handler.
DirectoryIndex index.php

# Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
# but the following cannot be changed at runtime.

# PHP 4, Apache 1.
<IfModule mod_php4.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# PHP 4, Apache 2.
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# Requires mod_expires to be enabled.
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  # Enable expirations.
  ExpiresActive On

  # Cache all files for 2 weeks after access (A).
  ExpiresDefault A1209600

  # Do not cache dynamically generated pages.
  ExpiresByType text/html A1
</IfModule>

# Various rewrite rules.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on

  # If your site can be accessed both with and without the 'www.' prefix, you
  # can use one of the following settings to redirect users to your preferred
  # URL, either WITH or WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix. Choose ONLY one option:
  #
  # To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix,
  # (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...)
  # adapt and uncomment the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  #
  # To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
  # (http://www.example.com/... will be redirected to http://example.com/...)
  # uncomment and adapt the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

  # Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory or in a
  # VirtualDocumentRoot and the rewrite rules are not working properly.
  # For example if your site is at http://example.com/drupal uncomment and
  # modify the following line:
  # RewriteBase /drupal
  #
  # If your site is running in a VirtualDocumentRoot at http://example.com/,
  # uncomment the following line:
  # RewriteBase /

  # Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

# $Id: .htaccess,v 1.90.2.1 2008/07/08 09:33:14 goba Exp $


I did try uncommenting the line:
  # RewriteBase /
however that had no effect either.  Not to mention, from my understanding, that only applies to if drupal is installed in subfolders.


Also, clean urls and ModRewrite, etc IS WORKING.  Like i said, when i log in i can go to pages that were created such as http://www.wildefuneralhome.com/contact or http://www.wildefuneralhome.com/tracker just fine and it DOES NOT use the ?q=, thus the rewriting stuff is working.  Its only when i try to go to http://www.wildefuneralhome.com/admin or if im' not logged in that this happens.  

I'll figure this out eventually, i have to.  Thanks for any advice...

create a file called info.php that contains the attached code

access the file e.g www.example.com/info.php
then save it and attach it here.

maybe this would help narrowing the possibilities.

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Select allOpen in new window

WOW great suggestion.  I did a few tests today.  I'll do your suggestion and notify you about the tests i've done tomorrow as soon as i can.

Okay so here's some news.
Here are the a few of the experiments i've done:

I have tried overwriting the theme files with ones that were backed up a few months before this started happening
NO CHANGE- thus i reverted this

I have tried overwriting the base drupal files such as .php with "fresh" ones from drupal.org
NO CHANGE- thus i reverted this

I have tried copying this drupal installation to a new server which will give us clues.  i moved over all drupal files and the database, etc. Every thing seems to match up on the new temp server.
This no longer yields a 500 internal server error, all seems to function correctly and i can now access the ADMIN pages, etc, on the new server. so far EXCEPT a few errors spit out from drupal:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home2/schwebde/public_html/wfh/includes/theme.inc on line 443

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home2/schwebde/public_html/wfh/includes/theme.inc on line 448

I'm not sure if this is what is causing the 500 internal server error on the ORIGINAL server or not, nor how to fix it.  I will experiment with replacing theme.inc for example with a fresh version, but haven't done that yet.

On the new server cron does run manually but doesn't return to the Status Report page, rather just leaves you on the blank page with the two errors above.

I have put info.php on each server.  Check out
Original server: http://www.wildefuneralhome.com/info.php
temporary other server: http://www.schwebdesign.com/wfh/info.php
any thoughts?

A plus that things are working a bit better on the new server is that i can access drupals error logs.  
I have created a new user account so you can log in to the COPY of this drupal install on the new TEMP server and view the error logs that drupal saved.

just go to www.schwebdesign.com/wfh/user
Log in with username: experthelper
password: temp
then go to the logs at: http://www.schwebdesign.com/wfh/admin/reports/dblog
things seem to go awry at the log entry for 10/01/2008 - 13:00

So, there's some information.  Any thoughts?  I'll keep you updated...

so far on my new server (which is at hostmonster- a heck of a lot better than godaddy) there are NO error logs relevant to what i just installed at www.schwebdesign.com/wfh

looking forward to your reply

stuff being passed doesn't seem to work on new server.  but they do sometimes

for example when i logged in as administrator on the new server,  it took me to a page with the address:
http://www.schwebdesign.com/wfh/admin?destination=admin but it was just a blank page with the error messages on it.
i then went back to the admin page by going to http://www.schwebdesign.com/wfh/admin

and it had successfully logged me in but there was a new error message shown:
# warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home2/schwebde/public_html/wfh/includes/theme.inc:443) in /home2/schwebde/public_html/wfh/includes/session.inc on line 101.
# warning: session_regenerate_id() [function.session-regenerate-id]: Cannot regenerate session id - headers already sent in /home2/schwebde/public_html/wfh/includes/session.inc on line 104.

whatever, i don't care if these are irrelevant to the situation on the other server.  I essentially want to figure out what is causing the 500 internal server error on the original server.

i wish i could figure out what those error messages left.  so far google searches aren't helping.

replacing the includes/theme.inc file with a "fresh" one yeilded no change.

Thanks again for all your advice.  Indeed, i hope this post helps others work similar problems out.

Thanks for the advice regarding the php memory limit.  I will keep a close eye on that.

At the moment, however, i'm thinking it had to be some scripting error.  

I'm not sure what to do at this point.  I feel you deserve points for helping me, even though I technically fixed it myself.  

...not to mention i need the remaining points to ask yet another question.  Thanks again!

Not at all LeftHandedPants, the points are not that much important for me, satisfaction and credit is the most important. Also the question and analysis done by you makes it a good reference.

wish you all the best.