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Thursday, September 29, 2011

Joomla: 500 - An error has occurred

I got a strange error when I tried to login to the Administration section of my Joomla(1.7) installation. After I entered my login name and password and hit the singin button, I got the following error!

"500 - An error has occurred - Return to Control Panel"
500 - An error has occurred - Joomla
However, I could access the site(front end) without any problem. That didn't help me because I can't do any configuration changes without entering the administrator section(back end).

A Google search for the error message returned thousands of results. It looked like many people had this problem. 

The Solution:
Though it took couple of hours of going through results and tweaking the folder/permission settings on my hosting server, I could solve this problem.

This is what I did to solve the mysterious "500 - An error has occurred" problem:

I logged into my hosting server. Then in my Joomla installation directory, I changed the permission of following folders to 775.
  • administrator/cache
  • cache
  • logs
  • tmp
And it started working! I could login to the Joomla Admin Page of my site! I managed to solve the problem without understanding the problem!

If you have run into same/similar problem, and/or you know a better solution feel free to share your story in comments.
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25 comments:

  1. babelattkeSeptember 29, 2011 at 8:00 AM

    hi,

    i have the same problem...when u says "changed the permission of following folders to 775"...how u make it?...by ssh? what is the path? or by ftp?

    Thaks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SandeepaOctober 9, 2011 at 10:42 PM

    @babelattke

    Hello,

    I used SSH and changed it. The path is relative to your Joomla installation folder.

    Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SandeepaOctober 9, 2011 at 10:43 PM

    @st3ph

    You are welcome.

    Feel free to share the post and subscribe for more updates.

    ReplyDelete
  4. JWOctober 11, 2011 at 1:06 AM

    I'm facing the same issue as you did. Unfortunately your workaround did not work for me. The strange thing for me is: on my local server it's working all gravy but after I uploaded my files on my webspace and changed the configuration.php file I get these error messages...

    ReplyDelete
  5. SandeepaOctober 11, 2011 at 4:13 AM

    @DUme,
    Hello,

    Let's see what's happening with your set up. Which version of Joomla are you using?

    Did you verify that the folder permissions have indeed changed?

    When do you get the error message?

    ReplyDelete
  6. ebDecember 1, 2011 at 3:15 AM

    I can't log in to joomla 1.7 adminitrator .I got an error(500 - An error has occurred.
    Return to Control Panel)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Web design PloiestiDecember 2, 2011 at 12:08 AM

    I have that error when I press the login button from the login form. No one could explain me why on my testing server works fine and not live on a linux server

    ReplyDelete
  8. SandeepaDecember 2, 2011 at 2:03 AM

    @Ori & @Web design Ploiesti:

    Did you try the fixes I have mentioned in this blog?

    Do so and comment here with your results.

    ReplyDelete
  9. sathyaDecember 21, 2011 at 4:52 AM

    Nice explanation.How error will occurred it is really great information.Each content shows how it make.
    Joomla developer

    ReplyDelete
  10. SandeepaDecember 27, 2011 at 4:52 AM

    @Sathya & Lauraine,

    Thanks for the comments and links :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. UTHAN SERVICESFebruary 2, 2012 at 10:50 PM

    i changed the permission to 775, but problem not solved. it's showing
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    500 - An error has occurred.
    Layout default not found

    Return to Control Panel
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    let me add one more thing, i have deleated the default file that was in the public file

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2012 at 2:03 AM

    Thanks for the post, my error occured because of my log and tmp folder paths in configuration.php

    ReplyDelete
  13. SedjroFebruary 3, 2012 at 8:58 AM

    hi captainsai
    I got the same problem, i think that my error occured because of configuration.php, how did you fix it?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Gilson MoraesMarch 5, 2012 at 11:17 AM

    Boa tarde,

    The Solution by Sandeepa Nadahall, 05-03-2012 at 4:01pm:

    Though it took couple of hours of going through results and tweaking the folder/permission settings on my hosting server, I could solve this problem.

    This is what I did to solve the mysterious "500 - An error has occurred" problem:

    I logged into my hosting server. Then in my Joomla installation directory, I changed the permission of following folders to 775.

    administrator/cache
    cache
    logs
    tmp

    And it started working! I could login to the Joomla Admin Page of my site! I managed to solve the problem without understanding the problem!

    --

    I usei um programa chamado PuTTY.exe para mudar as permissões das pastas citadas acima, logado com root do servidor.

    O funcionamento não é de imediato. Após uma(1) hora, eu consegui logar como administrador. Não entendi a modificação mas funcionou.

    Obrigado.

    Gilson Brazil.
    bye.

    ReplyDelete
  15. WiljerJuly 19, 2012 at 10:10 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  16. WiljerJuly 19, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    I've the same problem but, is when i try to enter in Menu Manager, how do i can make for the solution? i hope a help please...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SandeepaAugust 23, 2012 at 3:12 AM

      Where do you get the error? At what step of the process? Please give details.

      Delete
  17. UnknownAugust 21, 2012 at 4:32 AM

    i changed the permission to 775, but problem not solved. it's showing
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    500 - An error has occurred.
    Return to Control Panel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SandeepaAugust 21, 2012 at 8:25 PM

      Hello,
      Which version of Joomla are you using?

      Delete
    2. UnknownSeptember 12, 2012 at 7:43 AM

      Because, there is probably no relation to permissions. Search for coockies in your browser and remove all which has association to your website. This issue can occure when you logout as admin in unusual way.

      Delete
    3. SandeepaSeptember 17, 2012 at 11:59 PM

      Okay. May be you are right. Let me try to find more about this and update. Thanks.

      Delete
  18. UnknownSeptember 1, 2012 at 2:47 AM

    am having the same problm am using joomla 2.5. when i changed the permission to 775 and saved it appears as 0775 and the problem still persist. pls help

    ReplyDelete
  19. MannuOctober 30, 2012 at 8:09 PM

    I have found that if you use any account other than default "admin" during installation, It gives this error. Nasty :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SandeepaNovember 2, 2012 at 9:16 AM

      That's good info. But I've seen this problem even when installed with admin account.
      This one is a crazy error.

      Delete
  20. gooyaabitemplatesSeptember 10, 2014 at 6:30 AM

    how to resolved this error "500 - An error has occurred.
    Return to Control Panel"

    ReplyDelete

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