How to fix Joomla HTTP 500 errors after updates

Here is how to resolve Joomla HTTP 500 errors after applying updates
Published on Tuesday, 12 November 2013
iis joomla php windows-server

Over the last week, at Vevida, we received quite some problem reports from customers who updated Joomla to version 3.2.0. After logging on to their administrator back-end, they received an HTTP 500.0 error with error code 0x8007000d. Let's investigate and resolve this Joomla Administrator login HTTP 500 error.

The information in this post is still valid, even for Joomla 3.6.4 and up!

What is this Joomla HTTP Error 500?

Unfortunately this Joomla HTTP Error 500: Internal Server Error has nothing important to tell, except in case of IIS as web server:

Internal Server Error, The data is invalid. (0x8007000d)

That's not much...

It basically means that somewhere the output breaks FastCgi and PHP output. The given HTTP 500.0 error, after logging on, looks like:

Showing Joomla's HTTP 500 detailed errors in IIS

An IIS Failed Request Tracing report looks like:

IIS Request Trace for Joomla HTTP 500 error

How to fix a Joomla HTTP Error 500 after Joomla updates

Often, you can fix this HTTP error 500 in Joomla pretty easy. If only I knew this earlier, it would have saved me some time :-) . This post certainly will save you time.

Follow the next steps:

  1. when you've tried to log on and the HTTP 500.0 error is displayed, add ?option=com_installer&view=database in the address bar of your browser to the URL. The full URL then becomes http://www.example.com/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer&view=database.
  2. after pressing the ENTER key on your keyboard, you're automatically logged on to your Joomla Administrator back-end.
  3. You'll probably notice database errors. These database errors can be repaired easily using the Fix-button. This resolves the log on issue permanently.

Joomla Administrator log on URL

Joomla database not up to date

Joomla database errors fixed

Curious to learn how to improve Joomla performance with just 8 simple tips?

HTTP 500 fix tested and verified with Joomla 3.2.4, 3.3.6 and 3.6.4

This fix for HTTP 500 errors when logging in to Joomla administrator is still valid for Joomla 3.2.4, 3.3.6 and Joomla 3.6.4 updates.

Incorrect permissions on Joomla's log/error.php file

Turns out, at least on Windows Server IIS, PHP/FastCgiModule might throw an 0x8007000d error if file and directory permissions are improperly (incorrectly) configured. You must correct the file permissions as well!

However, at the same time, after setting correct file permissions on logs/error.php and logging in, Joomla complained about two database problems:

Database schema version (3.1.1) does not match CMS version (3.3.6-2014-09-30).

Database update version (None) does not match CMS version (3.3.6).