500 internal error

[panda]

I'm getting it on both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

[Davydov]

Please post browser! I have no idea how to fix it otherwise.

IE7 in my case.

[imslp]

I've tweaked the settings... does the problem still persist? Do you have any "web accelerator" installed?

[Davydov]

I've tweaked the settings... does the problem still persist? Do you have any "web accelerator" installed?

I'm currently on my lunchbreak at work, where we have IE6, and the error message is still coming up here. I'll be able to let you know whether it's fixed on IE7 in another 6 hours or so.

No web accelerators are installed at either location, to the best of my knowledge, and no other recent changes in system setup.

[rileymorgan797]

I get it now trying to open a file. I opened one, and it stopped working. I am trying to use Chrome, Firefox, and IE7, and it doesn't work on any of them.

[daphnis]

I'm still getting sporadic 500 errors (Firefox 3.6).

[davidmorton]

I am getting the 500 internal error message after most attempts to go to a new page.

[Hobbypianist]

some weird observations the last few days, maybe they all are result of the current problems:

-after submitting a cr tag the work page showed up with U/U/U, after submitting the same tag
for the 4th time it finally had V/V/V....this happened with a some pages

-login today: 1st attempt: after typing in user and password I got redirected to the Hauptseite (where I started from)... but was not logged in. I only saw the login link and no special /personal pages.
2nd attempt: same procedure, same result.
3rd attempt: again click on Hauptseite: error
4th attempt: again I clicked only on Hauptseite and nowhere else ....and was logged in! So actually I must have been logged in already...

- I was logged in and wanted to go to Specialpages and got an error. I tried again and.... was logged out!

- I clicked on Hauptseite and got an 500 error. Then I clicked immediately on RecentChanges and it worked. Immediate subsequent
click on Hauptseite again: 500 error. I switched between Hauptseite and several others (which loaded correctly). Do only specific pages
cause an error?!

I use Firefox 3.0.10

[Davydov]

There's been a definite improvement this evening, with no errors so far after browsing through a few dozen pages, so the fix for IE7 seems to have worked.

[KGill]

At this point, Chrome (4.0.249.78) works fine (for me at least)- it was horrible yesterday. Opera never had problems, Firefox would give me the new error about every 10 pages or so, but I haven't tried it today.

[imslp]

After hours and hours of research I finally know what is wrong.

The reason Firefox still gave errors was because Firefox is the most abusive of browsers insofar as the server is concerned. This entire business has essentially ended up being a race to the bottom: whoever abuses the server more will get faster speed, but the speed overall doesn't change. Apparently Chrome started this race to the bottom, and IE/Firefox followed Chrome's lead (or surpassed it in the case of Firefox). Opera is somewhere in between. Let's hope the race doesn't get worse, or else every webmaster of high traffic sites would go nuts.

In any event, I've now tweaked the config such that even Firefox shouldn't complain. The only way to trigger the error now is to either (1) install an even more abusive "web accelerator", or (2) browse IMSLP using two different browsers at once, one of which is Firefox (don't know why you'd want to do that).

If anyone is still having trouble in the normal configuration, tell me. And give me the browser you are using.

[daphnis]

I received another 500 just now (Firefox 3.6). Browsing with multiple tabs, only one of which running IMSLP.

[imslp]

Well... one of the tradeoffs of catering to Firefox is more 500 errors; if I could have avoided either problem, I would have done so earlier. However, not supporting Firefox is not a solution, so this is pretty much non-negotiable from a webmaster's point of view. Also, I don't think multiple tabs is a problem, because the limits are browser-wide.

I've already done the most I can without resorting to extensive tests, which I simply do not have time for at this point in time. The 500 errors are because of server overload. However, on average the server load is way below overload, or even maximum load; it is currently something like 50% utilization during peak hours (this is what I fixed on Saturday, it used to be simply overloaded during peak hours). So I do not know why there are huge sudden spikes in traffic. I am beginning to suspect foul play, but I do not have any evidence.

If you get a 500 error, wait for 10 seconds and retry. Usually the outage does not last more than a few seconds to one minute. Yesterday, there was a total of 85 outages of 2 seconds = approximately 3 minutes of outages total, which I think is acceptable (or at least several times better than before).

As I said above, I've done the most I possibly can at this point in time. If this problem persists or worsens, I will conduct extensive tests during the summer, when the threat of exams does not loom over my head. I apologize for the inconvenience in the meanwhile, and assure everyone that this is not a permanent problem.

[Davydov]

I've been getting a 500 error for the last 10 minutes (Weds, 0645-0655 UTC). Still on IE7 here.

[imslp]

I actually found a few other things to tweak. Tell me if you get 500 errors starting now.