Hi,
Google Webmaster tools reports a 500 error on /wp-content/themes/Newsmag/. This has been asked before:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/topic/newspaper-8-1-theme-folder-error-and-missing-a-file/
https://forum.tagdiv.com/topic/google-crawl-errors-2/
without a clear resolution.
“Like DNS errors, a server error is extremely urgent. It’s a fundamental error, and harms your site overall. You should take immediate action if you see server errors in Search Console for your site.” (MOZ)
When browsing to that folder, I get the following message:
” is currently unable to handle this request. HTTP ERROR 500″
If I mark it as fixed, it is just going to reappear in the future. It might harm the website performance (Google might interpret it as a misconfigured server or one that cannot take a traffic spike) or it might not (the rest of the website is accessible), but it would be very nice to fix the error for peace of mind.
Any ideas on how we could fix this for good?
Thanks.
Hello miket,
Do you have tried all the above advice regarding on this problem? First of all, you should re-install the theme via FTP way and also, make sure that your theme version was the latest one. After this, if the problem is still there, you should contact your hosting provider, tell the problem and request their help. Also, for more information and advice for this type of problem, please check the following useful guide here -> http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-internal-server-error-in-wordpress/
Thanks for your understanding!
I don’t think that a generic article is going to help me fix this error.
Please read the related tickets that I linked to in my original request (above):
“Chris S #192272
Sep 7, 2017 at 1:44 am
This happens when you update theme or main WordPress …
nothing to fix; normally you will have one of these, unless hacker slamming that directory. So, with one you just mark as ‘fixed’ and move on.
That should so be in the WP documentation — which they are finally going to redo (won’t be called ‘codex’ any more for 2018!). ?”
“Chris S #192418
Sep 7, 2017 at 7:09 pm
I think we did something on one site for that,
we made an index.php file that had a refresh header …
although I think we then instead did an htaccess file for the them folder,
and did 301 redirect for index.php to home page of site. Something like that.
Downside is you need to replace those each time theme is updated.
Or, just grimace when you do theme update and month later see that single entry in your search console. I usually just go “(sigh) … stupid Google…”
I mean, how stupid do you have to be in the data mining business to not auto-ignore /wp-content/themes/ for indexing ANYTHING? Duh.”
I have found a possible solution on other support forums:
Hi!
Yes, having read the Yoast article https://yoast.com/dont-block-your-css-and-js-files/ i’d suggest not blocking all theme resources, however i think index.php should not be read directly by crawlers (or visitors) because it will always result on a PHP error, you could try one of these two workarounds:
Redirect theme index.php to root (this will apply to all visitors), .htaccess code (you could extend this to child theme directories or plugins):
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /wp-content/themes/enfold/index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^wp-content/themes/enfold/index\.php$ http://DOMAIN.com/ [R=301,L]
Or simply disallow only index.php in the theme folder, robots.txt code:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/enfold/index.php
Please advise.
Not really a theme issue; it’s an inherent issue with WordPress.
If you read up on this, you may find the plugin “maintenance mode” helpful, as this is the kind of thing that is good for.
Neither Theme (any theme) nor TagDiv are responsible for how WordPress ‘behaves’ when you change themes, or do any update to WP, themes, or plugins — that error comes from the fact your site is still being pinged, and sitemap in place, and suddenly the theme is not there, then it is again.
So — a permanent solution is to either ignore the issue as it should only happen once in awhile and Google doesn’t care, nor is it a “server issue” — it’s basically the fact that public should not be going to that folder.
So
a) either create a solution with htaccess like I did, or
b) learn to use something like the ‘maintenance mode’ plugin
c) mark fixed, ignore – move on with your life, per my prior posts 🙂
Food for thought anyway.
Not really a theme issue, so any help/advice you get on this forum will be voluntary, and not mandatory from staff or users.
Hi Chris or anyone one else who wants to chime in. Is it ok to use this in the robots.txt file?
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
I can’t imagine it would lead to any issues since it’s just telling Google not to index this folder. Or maybe I’m wrong so would welcome any input or suggestions.
Kind regards
Hi Mesotu,
No, it’s not ok to use that code, since it is going to block CSS and JS, too:
https://yoast.com/dont-block-css-and-js-files/
The 500 error IS a big deal, since Google thinks there is something wrong with your server and does report it as a server issue. Repeatedly. Weird enough, out of 15-20 themes I’ve been using, Newsmag is the ONLY one that has the issue, so there goes the ‘inherent WordPress problem’ theory. Secondly, we can’t really blame it on Google crawling those folders, because Google does not really care who’s fault it is. It either sends you more traffic or less traffic, and those errors are one of the important factors how it decides that. So, let’s not forget that we create websites so they can be SEEN by as many people as possible. If there is an issue that prevents that, no matter who’s fault it is, we have failed in accomplishing our main goal.
I have not seen a solution, yet, that is not spread over 3-4 support tickets. I am considering changing the theme just to get rid of this one problem.
