I've recently encountered an error on my blog when comments are submitted. For some reason, when a comment is posted a "500 Internal Server Error" is returned to the user. However, the comment does in fact successfully post to the blog.

This behaviour has only been noted recently by both myself and other viewers of the blog. It is possible that this started occurring when I upgraded to MT 2.65, but I cannot be certain this is the case.

There does not seem to be anything wrong with the templates for the various comments forms. The error occurs when you click to post the comment, either directly from typing the comment or after previewing it.

Should I try to re-install MT over my existing installation? Any tips for what I should do in this case? I'm at a bit of a loss for how to troubleshoot the existing installation. Perhaps a file has become corrupted somehow?

Ironically, I originally installed MT when my host space did not meet the Perl requirements stated. They at that stage had Perl 5.004_03 installed, where 5.004_04 is required. I note now that they have upgraded to 5.005_03 according to their documentation. I have no idea when this upgrade occurred, or whether this could be related. (Seems unlikely.)

Any tips?

[bump!]

No one ever seen this problem?

Well, just should any poor soul wander through this ghost town in the back of the support forums...

The problem spontaneously resolved itself, after a week or so. I re-uploaded the default comments templates but this didn't seem to fix the problem at the time. However, when I returned today, the problem seems to be gone.

I wonder whether my hosting provider broke something and then fixed it, or upgraded something...?

This is happening to me too...www.taffystay.com. Does anyone know the cause and also the solution? Thanks!

By any chance (or lack of), does any of you two is hosted by PowWeb?

We PowWeb users currently have this problem. After reading extensively on the problem, I come to the conclusion that they somehow reduced the RAM allocated to CGIs. I'm waiting for an answer from them; if it is the case, my only solution will be:
- to convince them to put it back to how it was 3 days ago
- move to another host (that would be quite painful... i took 3 days to move to powweb just 3 months ago... and paid for a full year in advance...)

Argh!

This used to happen rather a lot on my site, which is hosted on DreamHost; it subsided after a while, which suggests to me that they upgraded, or at least rebooted, some of the modules they were using.

Yeah, on PowWeb... just upgraded to 2.661 and now get a 500 error when trying to rebuild the monthly and category archives.

Server log shows more or less random errors (can't find files). Index rebuilds and the blog seems to run/look okay...

PowWeb says there are no server-side problems.

What to do... what to do...

This is happening on my blog as well. I'm hosted with Cyberpixels.

I'm hosted by Beigetower. So you think it's more of a hosting problem than something in the coding?

Based upon the other posts here and my own situation, yeah, I do think it's a server problem.

I'll try and unload my entire installation to my son's Linux box tonight and more or less prove that.

I e-mailed a message to MT asking they check into this forum and see if the can provide any help.

You didn't say so explicitly but I assume you too are suffering from "500 errors." Izzat true?

== Updated ==

Two hours later--maybe when traffic on my West Coast server was lower--I had no trouble doing a full rebuild.

I am having the same exact problem as the original post describes. Everything about my site seems to be working. But when you post a comment, instead of a confirmation screen you get an Internal Server Error. If you close the pop-up and refresh, though, you find that the comment was logged.

I have checked and all my .cgi scripts have the correct permissions.

I am hosted with Westhost. It does seem odd that several different hosts are involved with the same problem.

My comments started working. I'm not sure why, but here’s what I did:

- I disabled all but the basic functionality in my Comment preferences (allowed anonymous comments, disabled email notification to myself, etc.)
- I logged out of my MT Manger Page (I was logged in during all previous attempts to comment).

I tried many other fixes and none worked. I had given up and then, on really my last try, my comment posted.

I *was* getting the Error 500 page, but now I'm getting this:

"server cannot find http://www.taffystay.com/apps/mt/mt-comments.cgi"

I hope someone from MT checks this soon with some good advice!

you might want to check your MT installation and make sure all the files are still there. The 404 error indicates the webserver couldn't find the file at that URL, so either it's been moved or it's been deleted.

I've had the same problem but with Trackback as well as Comments. One thing I did that fixed my Comments problem (but not the Trackback -- this still doesn't work ) is to tinker with my mt-cfg file as follows

I just took the # off the 'CommentScript mt-comments.pl' line, and hey presto!

In the meantime, if anyone can shed some light on my 500 error problem on Trackback, please advise.

Hmmm. That "solution" doesn't make a whole lot of sense - that line is telling MT that your comments script isn't named "mt-comments.cgi" but rather, "mt-comments.pl". But on your site, .cgi works correctly.

For anyone who is getting the 500 error but the comments are posted, are you getting email notification of the comment (assuming you have elected that option)? If not, the issue could be with sendmail on your server.

Right, girlie, this whole 500 problem doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I have the same problem that many others have seen with version 2.661 on a new server. I export/import all the entries from my current blog, and afterwards I have two Error 500 situations:

1. Rebuilding Monthly and Category archives generates error 500, but rebuilding individual, weekly, and index pages works fine.

2. Posting a comment generates an error 500 instead of re-displaying comments. The comment posts just fine.

Apparently MT gets lost parsing the database for some value it needs and bombs off when it can't find it. This has been reported by too many people on too many servers to be a hosting problem.

I've got the same issue described as the original post, but with some different symptoms. When trying to add a comment from an individual archive page, I get the error type:
but the comment actually does post like others here have described.

However, if the comment originates from a pop up page, there is no error. Any ideas why that might be happening?

I use Host Acres for hosting and am running only slightly modified versions of the default category archive template and individual archive template.

Thanks for the help.

Anyone come up with anything other than "wait and hope"? I'm getting 500 errors when I try to popup the comments. The form on the post archive page gives the same error on submission: "The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request."

edit: err, never mind, sorry (it's resolved).

I'm having the same problem here: http://www.macthemes.net/contest/entries.php

I think my blog just overloaded. We opened these entries up on midnight, and we've gotten about 400 comments since then. I hope someone finds out how to fix this!

How many of the ISPs where people are getting 500 errors have time-limits on CGI scripts?

I have the same blog on two ISPs, one with the time limit and one without, and the non-limited one works fine while the limited one bombs off with 500 errors all over the comment and rebuilding process.

BubbaDude, that's it exactly. The types of 500 errors that are being talked about here are because MT is trying to do more in the way of processing than the server will let it. The two solutions are to modify your templates so MT needs to do less processing for the rebuild or to increase the time limits (which you may find happens if you upgrade to a more expensive hosting plan). There is no magic fix.

MT is a very powerful piece of software and it requires a fair amount of resources to run. Cheap shared hosting plans often are not allocated enough resources for MT to run properly, especially once your blog becomes large or you add a lot of plugins or other complicated template code.

Why does MT keep doing all this stuff? Because people keep asking for more and more features.

Guys, did you ever try installing the most visited plug in? I found out that when I went back and uninstalled it, it's all fixed now.