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Getting Server Error 500 Errors since installing the forum

SL slobizman
slobizman
Member
Member since Aug 2009
40 posts
Apr 26, 2013 · 10:54 pm · Edited

Google Webmaster Tools just emailed me warning me that they have been getting “500” Server Errors on the site on which i installed SP.  I checked and since 4/18, about when I got the SP forum up, I started getting these server errors on URLs like this one:

http://www.3dprinter.net/wp-content/sp-resources/forum-themes/iForum/templates/spTopicView…

All of the initial ones where in the sp-resources/forum-themes/iForum/templates directory (that I’ve seen, I have not checked every one). After that date, I started getting the errors on other normal WP pages of mine, all sorts of notmal post, page and archive pages. It’s strange.  323 server errors for the week long period.

I did not think about connecting this with SP, until I realized that the initial 500 Server Errors began when I started testing the forum after installing it, and then the errors escalated to my normal WP pages after I went live a few days ago and started making forum posts and getting visitors.  So, it really seems to be SP related.

Any ideas?

 

 

6 Answers

New Answer
MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member
Member since Dec 2006
19,448 posts
Apr 26, 2013 · 11:17 pm

why are you letting google crawl your wp-content directory structure??? nothing good in there for it… its trying to view a file as a website that cannot be…

you should use a robots.txt file to keep google and other crawlers out of non web sections of your server… google wordpress and robots.txt… many suggested files to use and many plugins to do it for you… if you are using Yoast WordPress SEO, it can do it for you already…

SL slobizman
slobizman
Member
Member since Aug 2009
40 posts
Apr 26, 2013 · 11:32 pm

Okay, so I can do that.  I used to have a robots.txt file that excluded certain directories but then I read so many conflicting things and quite a few said not to do any exclusion and let webmaster tools figure it out.  Not my area of expertise.  

I replaced my Yoast SEO plugin with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin so I could use your SP sitemap plugin. So, I’ll go ahead and create my own robots.txt file. I guess I can use the one on WordPress’s codex.

Question: Do you think that all the 500 Errors I started getting on “regular” URLs right after installing SP has anything to do with the robot crawling the SP files?Weird how all of a sudden, coincidentally, I started getting them.

Thanks for your help on a Friday night.

SL slobizman
slobizman
Member
Member since Aug 2009
40 posts
Apr 26, 2013 · 11:35 pm

Ha! Didn’t even know I already had a robots.txt file. Sorry.  Here it is, do you see a problem with it?

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache=
Disallow: /trackback
Disallow: /feed
Disallow: /comments
Disallow: */trackback
Disallow: */feed
Disallow: */comments
Disallow: /newsfeeds
Disallow: */newsfeeds
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /*?
Disallow: /?random
Allow: /wp-content/uploads

Sitemap: http://www.3dprinter.net/sitemap_index.xml

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member
Member since Dec 2006
19,448 posts
Apr 27, 2013 · 1:37 am

yes… you are allowing it to crawl /wp-content/sp-resources…

add it to the disallow list…

btw, I just updated the google xml sitemap plugin tonight to support Yoast WordPress SEO sitemaps too… will be in the next version of that plugin…