Htaccess and index

[ektunha]

### Website URL

(please specify the URL of the site on which you are experiencing the problem)

Error Message

(please share the FULL error message you see, if applicable)

Other Information

I’ve uploaded my original WP files to the Wordpress directory.

I’ve edited the htaccess and index files.

The site loads as a blank page.

If anyone can please advise, I’ve been doing it for a lot of hours, thanks in advance.

[YT_Xaos]

Welcome to the forum!

When I visit your website, I get an HTTP Error 500.

Http error 500

When trying to access your website, you may see a page which returns the status code “500”. In Google Chrome, you’ll see a page with the error code HTTP ERROR 500. There are typically two reasons which can cause this error: The PHP code has crashed. The .htaccess file contains invalid rules. Here are some things you can try to debug and fix this. Fixing crashing PHP code A HTTP ERROR 500 simply tells you that the PHP code has crashed, but gives no information as to why it has crashed. Gett…

[ektunha]

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately it’s beyond my skill level so I can’t proceed but I do appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge, thank you so much.

[YT_Xaos]

@ektunha

Unfortunately it’s beyond my skill level so I can’t proceed

That’s OK. I’m sure someone here can help you. That would not be me because I have no experience or knowledge of WordPress.

[ChrisPAR]

Have you done this?

@Admin

1. Login to your control panel.
2. Go to Alter PHP Config.
3. Select the domain name you are trying to debug and click Alter PHP Directives.
4. Set “Display Errors” to “On” and click the Alter PHP Directives to save.

And this?

@Admin

For example, WordPress has a setting WP_DEBUG which can be used to show the actual error message. You can learn more about that option in the WordPress knowledge base: https://wordpress.org/support/article/debugging-in-wordpress/

There’s no skill level required, the instructions are written so that you don’t have to familiarize yourself with the code of the software you’re running to be able to debug the issue.
More specifically, in WordPress, as the linked article mentions, you should go to the file manager and your website’s htdocs directory, find wp-config.php, and insert the following line in it:

// This enables debugging.
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

Making sure that this line has been inserted BEFORE this line (so not below it):

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

[ektunha]

Thanks very much, yes I’ve following the instructions and after a hard refresh (pressing Ctrl and F5) the site shows a blank white page.

I’m guessing that maybe the instruction for loading the front page is sending it to the wrong location.

[Admin]

I took a quick look at your site. I personally wouldn’t mess with the WordPress core files too much, but I don’t see any inherent issues in it.

I did take a quick look in your wp-config.php to check if debug mode was on. It was on, but I also noticed these rules:

// Disable display of errors and warnings
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );
@ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 );

These rules specifically disable any errors from being displayed. That’s why you get the completely blank 500 error page. If you want to see the actual error message, please remove or comment out these lines and refresh the page.

[ektunha]

Thanks again

The site I’ve set up is called artemisbelizean.infinityfreeapp.com

I’ve uploaded the original WP files to the HTDOCS directory so in the file manager it looks like HTDOCS/WORDPRESS and all the uploaded directories and files are there.

So far so good.

However the infinityfree welcome page is all that shows, not the original site page.

I’ve also studied the ’ Getting started with a new web hosting account’ page at Getting started with a new web hosting account

[Oxy]

You don’t need to upload to a subdirectory (wordpress)
but you need to upload files/folders directly to root
but to keep all the file structure if you want the website to appear when you visit the domain only

So all this should be directly in htdocs (no wordpress subdirectory and the like)

---

and your WP is even looking for wordpress./wordpress/xy.file (wrong + some dot at end)

[ektunha]

Nice one thanks I’ll have a look and get it all shifted

[ektunha]

Okay all shifted across to the correct HTDOCS directory.

Site reload shows a white screen still.

[Oxy]

now you have error 500 again

I assume that all files are present?

you mentioned several times: “I’ve uploaded my original WP files”
what exactly does that mean? your ex website? or something else?

be sure to check the wp-config and that the access data for the database is correct

I assume that you also created a DB here on the hosting?

[ChrisPAR]

Is the content of your .htaccess file also the original one that comes with WordPress? Can you share its contents here?

@Admin

Fixing invalid .htaccess rules

If your .htaccess file has an error, this may cause a HTTP ERROR 500 too. Unfortunately, there is no way to get an actual error message in this case.

However, you can remove or rename your .htaccess file (to .htaccess.backup, for example) and refresh the page. If you don’t see the HTTP ERROR 500 anymore, that likely means there was an error in the .htaccess file.

The simplest way to try to fix this is to download a fresh copy of the .htaccess file of your software and use it to replace your current .htaccess file. Doing so hopefully removes any broken lines.

If that’s not an option, you can restore your .htaccess file, and try to figure out which line or lines are causing the issue.

A fairly efficient way to do so is by doing a “binary search”. This means you first comment out about half of the lines in the .htaccess file and see if you still get the error. For example, if you comment out the bottom half and your website works, but you comment out the top half (and uncomment the bottom half) and your website breaks, you know that the bottom half of the code contains the broken line. You can then repeat this by commenting out a quarter of the code, or half of the broken half, to narrow down the error even further. You can repeat these steps until you’ve narrowed it down to a small block or even an individual line of code.

You can then attempt to remove or fix the broken lines specifically. If you’re not sure how, you can ask a question somewhere about the error. You could check the support channel of the plugin or theme causing the issue, ask your question on a general programming forum like StackOverflow, or ask it on our forum in the Hosting Support category .

[ektunha]

Thanks Chris

This the contents of the HTACCESS file within the HTDOCS folder;

php_value display_errors On
php_value mbstring.http_input auto
php_value date.timezone America/New_York
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

and this is the contents of the index.php file within the HTDOCS folder;

<?php
/**
* Front to the WordPress application. This file doesn't do anything, but loads
* wp-blog-header.php which does and tells WordPress to load the theme.
*
* @package WordPress
*/
/**
* Tells WordPress to load the WordPress theme and output it.
*
* @var bool
*/
define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);
/** Loads the WordPress Environment and Template */
require('./wp-blog-header.php'); ?>

and when I refresh the page at view-source:http://artemisbelizean.infinityfreeapp.com/, the source code looks like this;

This site requires Javascript to work, please enable Javascript in your browser or use a browser with Javascript support

[Admin]

If you navigate directly to the View Source page, you won’t be able to see your page because you’ll be blocked by this security system:

Ensuring only web browsers can access your website

InfinityFree is a website hosting service. That means that the hosting accounts we provided are intended for hosting websites. Websites contain pages that are accessed through web browsers. InfinityFree is not intended to be used for file sharing, API hosting, database hosting or background tasks/tools. To help enforce this, free hosting enforces a security system that makes sure that anyone trying to access your website is using a normal web browser. This is done by checking whether the web br…

If you want to view the source of your page, you can simply navigate to your site first, then right click anywhere and then choose “View page source”.

However, the page source isn’t really interesting. Your site just returns a 500 status code with no page output. So the page source is just empty.

---

As for the issue itself, a HTTP ERROR 500 still means something is crashing. So please try enabling debug display / display errors again to get an actual error message:

Htaccess and index

I took a quick look at your site. I personally wouldn’t mess with the WordPress core files too much, but I don’t see any inherent issues in it. I did take a quick look in your wp-config.php to check if debug mode was on. It was on, but I also noticed these rules: // Disable display of errors and warnings define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false ); @ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 ); These rules specifically disable any errors from being displayed. That’s why you get the completely blank 500 error page.…