I just installed a new wordpress 3.9 Website on my Webspace (t-online.de). I also installed X template with all plugins. The problem now is, that i get an 500 Internal Server Error when trying to start the Customizer from the Dashboard. The Server runs PHP 5.4.4.

Any Ideas?

Thanks!

Joe

Most often this is due to a lack of available memory. Could you review this article http://theme.co/x/member/kb/solutions-to-potential-setup-issues/

Each active plugin will use a chunk of memory, and if you have too many active you’ll eventually run out during a page request.

You can try increasing the memory by following these instructions: http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#Increasing_memory_allocated_to_PHP

If that doesn’t work, you may need to contact your host about it.

The best way to preserve memory is to do a plugin audit – go through your plugins and remove any that aren’t essential to your site’s operation.

I checked every setting and also reinstalled the WP and X Theme with all newest updates. I increased the PHP memory but still getting the Error when starting Customizer. After I installed WP and the X Theme, I can customize the Theme one time (the Customizer starts automatically after activating the Theme). But when I try to customize the Theme it ends with the internal server error. My hoster says that they can help me.

So here is a more detailed list of things I recognized:
1. after clicking on “Customizer” from the Dashboard, the site switches to “Loading (Step 1 of 2) Initializing X Customizer”, after round about 10 seconds, when the URL switches to “http://w262511qb.homepage.t-online.de/wp/wp-admin/customize.php” and the Internal Server Error appears with no specific details.

2. When I start the “Customize” Function from the Dashboard via Design -> Themes -> Customize Button on the X Theme Screenshot, the URL switches to http://w262511qb.homepage.t-online.de/wp/wp-admin/customize.php?theme=x, a small ball turns in a bigger ball (waiting symbol) and after the same time (10 Sec). the Internal Server Error appears with no specific details.

The “Customize” Function works with the normal Themes. So when I switch to a normal theme it works.

I am really frustrated because of the many hours I invested in solving this problem.

Do you have any further ideas to solve this problem?

I really look forward to hear from you!

Bye Joe

It might better if you could provide a login, and we will check. Though there is no assurance that It can be solved.

This doesn’t happen on most hosts, and its very unlikely to cause internal server error. If it is coding issue, then it will probably just show scripting errors. If its internal server error, then there is something wrong on your host setup, or htaccess setup.

It might working fine using other theme because, maybe, it doesn’t hit the threshold yet. Like process limit, or memory limit.

Thank you.

Thank you for the login!

I just checked your site. Even with higher memory limit, it seems your site is still slow. If this is a shared hosting, then even with higher limit it will still slow. Sharing domain might have much processing load.

If you could provide ftp login, then it will help me to check further. There is error log file at your site and I like to see it.

Thank you.

Here are what I found :

1. Your http server like apache, can’t log errors. I renamed previous error logs to cgi_error.log.1 to see if it will create error logs. It does create an error logs, but empty.
2. Can’t change folder permission.
3. WordPress can’t create .htaccess file, does wordpress does not have permission to write.

These issues were related to directory permissions, seeing that I can’t done any, even using the wordpress itself. Then that means, your http server (eg. apache) does not have permission to write into those folders. Which means, WordPress/PHP will have problem too as it runs on http server.

Please contact your host for fixes.

Thank you.