500 Internal Server Error for PHP Files: Troubleshooting and Solution

Many websites encounter the "500 Internal Server Error" issue when accessing PHP files, while HTML files function as expected. This problem arises when PHP code contains fatal errors, but error reporting is disabled.

To display the actual error instead of the generic error page, follow these steps:

Enable Error Display in PHP File:

1. Open your PHP file (e.g., index.php).
2. Add the following line at the beginning of the file:

ini_set('display_errors', 1);

This line enables PHP to display errors on the page itself.

Configure .htaccess File:

1. Edit your website's .htaccess file.
2. Add the following line to turn on PHP error display:

php_flag display_errors 1

This directive ensures that Apache displays PHP errors in a human-readable format.

Note: If you still receive a 500 error after making these changes, it means that there is a serious PHP error that needs to be fixed. You can inspect the displayed error message to identify and resolve the issue.