Fix MAMP (PRO) and WordPress: Internal Server Error (500).

February 23, 2021

I’ve often used container software for Rails apps in the past, but I’ve been using MAMP (PRO) for PHP web development for many years. Today I repeatedly encountered the “Internal Server Error” with the error code 500. This can have many causes, but one in connection with WordPress that can be easily rectified.

WordPress wallpapers

How to Fix Error 500 on WordPress and MAMP?

WordPress can often be asked. Did you just move a WordPress environment, or do you have changes to the wp-config.php made, then it can happen to you that when you call up a website suddenly nothing works anymore.

Internal server error screenshot

I ran into this error again after a few years and instead of realizing how to fix it, I had to do some more research myself. But the solutions offered were all far too complex. You should manipulate virtual hosts, make settings in the configuration files and restart the server. Eventually, though, it dawned on me and I remembered.

WP-Admin works, but website doesn’t: Permalinks are to blame

In fact, I was able to log into the “backend” without further ado, but just couldn’t call up a single page, and was then always confronted with the error 500.

In this specific case, opening the WordPress settings helps. Navigate there to the point “Permalinks” and simply click once on “Save changes”. Et voilà. It’s working again.

Of course, this procedure only helps if nothing annoying in the background doesn’t want to work the way it should. Because there can also be other reasons why you get this error message.

Approach the problem

As a user of MAMP Pro, for example, you can simply check the PHP configuration to display PHP errors on the monitor. If you only use MAMP without Pro, you can go into the head of your own template (usually header.php) add the following lines of code:

// PHP-Fehler ausgeben
   ini_set('display_errors', 1);
   ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);
   error_reporting(E_ALL);

But it was at this point that I became suspicious. Because there was no output at all and in fact I had only changed the configuration of WordPress because I had set up a new host for the installation.