Intermitent "500 Internal Server Errors"

[Percy Vere]

Ive uploaded my site using bullet proof FTP. My first deliberate mistake was not checking the asci file options and letting bullet proof work it out. fine if a file such as *.cnt contains asci characters but if it doesnt, it uploads as binary and takes hours to work out why it don't work.

My next major headache is intermitent 500 messages. my site is www.holmeschapel.net and is based on the perl webapp portal. I am reasonably ok with perl and have written quite a lot of the mods etc.

Trouble is I keep getting error messages but when I refresh the browser a few times it works. I have apache on my own server and the site works fine. its not a prob with the scripts (I think) I leaning towards something a bitmore obvious than that. DIRs are chmod 777, *.pl and *cgi are chmod 755 and text /dat files are 660. paths are perl = #!/usr/bin/perl mail=/usr/sbin/sendmail

the games and advertise bits are still being altered at the moment.
but the rest should function although with not much content (as yet).

The basic webapp comes with a few server variables

I'm currently using filelocking LOCK_EX 2 LOCK_UN 8. Not sure if its this. Ive done the usual clearing browser cache etc but the problem persists.

I can't quite get my head round why it fail first time then works when I refresh my browser. Its gotta be something I'm doing wrong (Usually things like this are) unless its the host server having restrictions?

Any help would be cool as its drivin me nuts.

[EncoderZ]

Dear customer
I've been to your site. Whilst on first arrival everything appeared fine and the page loaded correctly, hitting anywhere else I get the 500 error!

Obviously if simply clicking links back to your main page from within your site your browser (as mine) uses the cache to reload the page but if you refresh it does indeed throw another 500 error.

In a nutshell VH servers do have process restrictions. I've never understood the importance of them.

From personal experience:
I had my site set-up using cgi but then this process restrictions came into force and then everytime I was logged in via ftp my site would be 500 error all the time, then when I logged-out everything would be fine.

I simply changed all my site to run on php and avoided the process restrictions.

Hope this helps.

[Percy Vere]

Im in process of downloading current "live site" to my server and running to see what happens (if any thing is messed up on transfer). Appologies if you are looking at it for me. wont be long

[Percy Vere]

Ok were back up. All worked fine on my server. Still get the 500 on VH. Not sure what sort of job it is to convert to php but thanks for the help. I think I may of chose the wrong host. Pity theres no mention of server restrictions before you sign up. I would of saved a couple of days. Not sure what can be done.

Any other help...Anybody...PLEASE!

[Percy Vere]

In all fairness to the host I have only just announced this problem to them officially and they are willing to look deeper. Well done and Thanx for the help. Lets Hope its not my fault...Still its good to see a decent level of customer care and support. So well done AMBHOST.

Update will follow in hope it helps other users

[Percy Vere]

Tried my site at different times of the day with varying results. Some times everything works other times things error. This looks to be a server fault rather than a script as if a script is a fault it wont run at all. Am now waiting to see what AMBHOST and VH have to say and what might be done.

[Percy Vere]

AMBHOST ambhost.co.uk are interested and are investigating the problem from there side. Credit to them they are keeping updated on a regular basis. No word from Value Host yet as of this posting. Hope things are resolved soon as I just want my site to work.

[Percy Vere]

VH have confirmed that 5 similtaneous processes is the maximum. If set my home server to this and ...yep Intermittent 500 errors. I accept that 5 may be ok for most sites with say a formail or similar but is no good for a perl intensive site that builds pages from multiple files. I have no other solution than to take AMBHOSTS 30day money back option and cut my losses. Pity these things aren't mentioned when you sign up.

Still Ambhost where excellant with there efforts and maybee theres a lesson for us all here.

Web-app is a good portal that has been tested with over 2000 satisfied users. It is not a heavy server user but in this case did not meet the proccess max. Same goes with ralphchat chat script. be warned if 500 errors are youre problem it may be this.

[DaveD]

After battling with the same problem for days now as it seems the process restriction has changed recently or at least my errors have got a lot more frequent in the last week or so I will have to look elsewhere. I can't change my Ikonboard over to PHP as it won't convert and if it did I have no idea how. Sad considering I've been here years and have also several other commercial customers on here.
Shame about these restriction as Encoderz says but why have them so low?