Getting a 500 Internal Server Error on Laravel 5+ Ubuntu 14.04

Question

I have installed Laravel many times on Windows OS but it never occurred this type of problem. This 500 internal server usually occurs when your "mod_rewrite" module is not turned on.

However, on Ubuntu 14.04 this problem is giving me a headache. I have installed rewrite_mod but it's also not working. I've given access to all my folders and files inside i.e.

/var/www/html/laravel_project

Still it doesn't work. Changed .htaccess as well from original to this.

    +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]

I have all the necessary extensions needed for Laravel 5+ as well. Is there something left that I didn't do?

Answer 1

Finally Overcame the problem

• It was not the .htaccess file that was the problem nor the index.php. The problem was on accessing the files and requiring permissions.

For solving the problem i ran the following commands through terminal.

sudo chmod -R 755 laravel_blog

and then type below to allow laravel to write file to storage folder

chmod -R o+w laravel_blog/storage

This two commands solved the problem.

Answer 2

Create the .env file and also run :

php artisan key:generate

This worked for me after pulling a git project.

After creating .env file and generating the key, run the code below:

php artisan cache:clear 
php artisan config:clear

Answer 3

After installing run below command

sudo chmod 755 -R laravel
chmod -R o+w laravel/storage

here "laravel" is the name of directory where laravel installed

Answer 4

Try to check if you have .env file.

Mostly this thing can cause something like that. Try to create a file then copy everything from .env.example, paste it to your created file and name it .env. or jsut simply rename the .env.example file to .env and run php artisan key:generate

Answer 5

Make sure a .env file, containing an APP_KEY, exists in root.

What should be in the .env hasn't been explicitly stated in other solutions, and thought I'd boil it down to the sentence above.

This fixed my 500 error on a fresh install of Laravel.

Steps:

1. Create a .env file in root (e.g. touch .env)
2. Make sure it contains at least one line: APP_KEY=
3. Generate an app key in terminal: php artisan key:generate

More .env paramaters:

As a reference, here's the official .env with useful baseline parameters. Copy-paste what you need:

https://github.com/laravel/laravel/blob/master/.env.example

Notes:

• My particular installation didn't include any .env whatsoever (example or otherwise)

• Simply having a blank .env does not work.

• A .env containing parameters, but no APP_KEY parameter, does not work.

Bug?: When generating an app key in terminal, it seems to falsely report success, however no key will actually get placed in the .env if the file is missing a line starting with APP_KEY=.

Answer 6

I fixed with this Command:

   rm -rf app/storage/logs/laravel.logs
   chmod -R 777 app/storage,
   php artisan cache:clear,
   php artisan dump-autoload OR composer dump-autoload

Than restart a server eather XAMPP ore another one and that should be working.

Answer 7

I have faced a similar error. I checked the log in /var/log/apache2/error.log and found an UnexpectedValueException

I changed the owner to my apache user of the storage folder under the project dir.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data ./storage

In my case apache2 process owner is www-data, so change this to yours, this can be found in apache2 config file. Hope this is useful to you.

Answer 8

May another solution to this problem:

Install the required packages by running the composer command from the the root of the project:

sudo composer install

UPDATE:

• You should not run this command on a production server, but some issues with composer can be resolved with this on local envs.

EDIT:

• take a look at https://getcomposer.org/doc/faqs/how-to-install-untrusted-packages-safely.md to see why running composer install as root is not a good idea
• If you need to run it as root, provide the following flags, to block third-party code from executing durin the install --no-plugins --no-scripts

Answer 9

I read all the comments and suggestions. 500 - HTTP ERROR CODE represents internal server error.

Reasons for this error:

• These mainly cause due to permission issues
• Environment variables not found or .env file not found on your root directory
• PHP extensions problem
• Database problem

Fix:

• Set the correct permissions:

• Run these commands (Ubuntu/Debian)

find /path/to/your/root/dir/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find /path/to/your/root/dir/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/your/root/dir/

chgrp -R www-data storage bootstrap/cache
chmod -R ug+rwx storage bootstrap/cache

• If .env file doesn't exist, create one by touch .env and paste your environment variables and then run

   php artisan key:generate
   php artisan cache:clear
   php artisan config:clear
   composer dump-autoload

• Check your php.ini file and uncomment the extensions you need (In some case you have to install the extension by running this command apt-get install php7.2-[extension-name]
• Check your database credentials and values in .env file. And grant permissions to the database user for that database.

These are some common problem you likely going to face when deploying your laravel app and once you start getting all these commands, I suggest you to make a script which will save your time.

Answer 10

I had PHP 7.0 and PHP 7.1 installed and I was using PHP 7.1 on command line and PHP 7.0 was enabled on Apache, that messy can bring problems when you are using Laravel Framework and localhost Apache2 with laravel.

Check your composer file first to see your PHP version.

"php": "^7.1.3",
"laravel/framework": "5.6.*",

Check your currently php version on command line

php -v

Check your currently php version enabled on Apache, I did using browser.

http://localhost

If it's not the same disable the current version and enable the newest one.

sudo a2dismod php7.2

sudo a2enmod php7.1

sudo service apache2 restart

After that change folder permissions

sudo chmod 755 -R blog

for storage folder

chmod -R o+w blog/storage

Answer 11

A frequent issue when using git:

Laravel's .gitignore ignores the .env file which when missing generates this error

Solved this by manually adding an .env file on the server or uploading it through FTP

Answer 12

Sometimes there is problem with php version. We need to change php version from server. Just write down below string in .htaccess file:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

Answer 13

First allow all permissions for your project folder (let say it's called laravel), for the storage subfolder and its logs subsubfolder and for the vendor subfolder (laravel/storage, laravel/storage/logs and laravel/vendor).

Then check if your have .env file - if not you can run:

$ mv .env.example .env

to rename your build-in .env.example to the needed .env.

Otherwise turn on the debug mode - open .env and set

APP_DEBUG=true

and open laravel/config/app.php and change

'debug' => env('APP_DEBUG', false), 

to

'debug' => env('APP_DEBUG', true),

so you can find out what is the reason for your error.

Answer 14

Run these two commands in the directory where Laravel is installed:

sudo chmod 755 -R DIRECTORY_NAME
chmod -R o+w DIRECTORY_NAME/storage

Then clear the cache and dump the auto load:

php artisan cache:clear
composer dump-autoload

Answer 15

I have faced this problem many times. Try one of these steps it helped me a lot. Maybe it will also help you.

1. First of all check your file permissions.
2. To fix file permissions sudo chmod 755 -R your_project
3. Then chmod -R o+w your_project/storage to write file to storage folder.
4. php artisan cache:clear
   composer dump-autoload
5. php artisan key:generate
6. Then check server requirements as per the laravel requirement.
7. Many times you got this error because of the php version. Try changing your php version in cpanel.
8. Then configure your .htaccess file properly

Answer 16

If you use vagrant, try this:

First remove config.php in current/vendor.

Run these command:

php artisan config:clear
php artisan clear-compiled
php artisan optimize

NOT RUN php artisan config:cache.

Hope this help.

Answer 17

First, if there is not .env file in your Laravel repository. Copy the .env.example file using the following cmd command cp .env.example .env and open .env file and apply your configuration if needed.

Run these commands:

//---Generate Key in your project
php artisan key:generate
//---Flush the application cache
php artisan cache:clear
//---Remove the configuration cache file
php artisan config:cache
php artisan config:clear
//---Regenerates the list of all classes that need to be included in the project
composer dump-autoload
//---Restart your Server
php artisan serve

Answer 18

Run these two commands on root of laravel

find * -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0755 # for directories

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0644 # for files

Answer 19

I have a similar issue with a share Host. I was having 500 error. I just fixed by checking the Laravel version and PHP version. The error was because Laravel 5.6 doesn't run on PHP 7.0.x Once I know this I just reconfigure the project to Laravel 5.5 that is compatible with PHP 7.0.x now everything is right. Another reason I have issues sometimes is the FTP I get corrupted Files and have to upload the project more than once. Hope this help in the future I don't found so many information in this topic.

Answer 20

For those of you who like me still got errors after trying all the other answers :

Check the version of php apache uses, latest laravel only works with php7.1. So you have to :

sudo a2dismod php[yourversion]
sudo a2enmod php7.1
sudo systemctl restart apache2

hope this helps

Answer 21

if its on a live server try this

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
    Options -MultiViews -Indexes
</IfModule>
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /


# Handle Authorization Header
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

# Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]

# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]

then also make sure that the php version in your composer.json is the same as that of your server.

Check your php version in your terminal using php -v

Answer 22

Make sure, you've run composer update on your server instance.

Answer 23

I fixed this problem by this commands:

mv .env.example .env
php artisan cache:clear
composer dump-autoload
php artisan key:generate

then

php artisan serve

Answer 24

According to the logs :

[06-Feb-2016 22:38:48 Europe/Berlin] PHP Warning:  require(/Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/../vendor/autoload.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/autoload.php on line 17
[06-Feb-2016 22:38:48 Europe/Berlin] PHP Fatal error:  require(): Failed opening required '/Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/../vendor/autoload.php' (include_path='.:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php7.0.0/lib/php') in /Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/autoload.php on line 17
[06-Feb-2016 22:43:37 Europe/Berlin] PHP Warning:  require(/Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/../vendor/autoload.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/autoload.php on line 17
[06-Feb-2016 22:43:37 Europe/Berlin] PHP Fatal error:  require(): Failed opening required '/Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/../vendor/autoload.php' (include_path='.:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php7.0.0/lib/php') in /Users/tomsihap/Documents/Development/mamp/partie_1_exo/bootstrap/autoload.php on line 17

There are some failures opening files into the /vendor folder.

By installing and updating via composer, I was able to finally solve the issue.

sudo composer install
sudo composer update

Answer 25

Make sure storage folder with write previlege (chmod o+w), work for me like a charm.

Answer 26

Because of no right to write the log's directory.
chmod 755 storage -R

Answer 27

I faced this issue and fixed by upgrade my php version in apache up to 5.6.x

Answer 28

Only change the web folder permission through this command:

sudo chmod 755 -R your_folder

Answer 29

I just ran the following command:

php artisan passport:install

I was using passport to run my application completely based on API's and Vue.js. Laravel worked fine but everytime i tried to login via my API i would get the error. After running the command and updating the client_id and client_secret on my Laravel files then pushed the new updates to the live server, the problem was solved. In my user model i have a script as follows:

public function generateToken($request)
{
    $http = new \GuzzleHttp\Client();
    $response = $http->post(URL::to('/').'/oauth/token', [
        'form_params' => [
            'grant_type' => 'password',
            'client_id' => '6',
            'client_secret' => 'x3yhgWVqF8sSaMev4JI3yvsVxfbgkfRJmqzlpiMQ',
            'username' => $this->email,
            'password' => $request->input('password'),
            'scope' => '',
        ],
    ]);
    //  Lets get an array instead of a stdObject so that we can return without errors
    $response = json_decode($response->getBody(), true);

    return oq_api_notify([
                'auth' => $response,                                        //  API ACCESS TOKEN
                'user' => $this->load(['settings'])->toArray(),
            ], 201);
}

I just updated the client_id and client_secret only then saved. Since the passport command gives you two client keys:

1) Personal access client (client_id & client_secret)

2) Password grant client (client_id & client_secret)

I used the Password grant client. Hopes this helps someone out there :)

Answer 30

Create .env file with the below cmd command:

cp .env-example .env

Then generate a key for your project:

php artisan key:generate

After that clear your caches using the below commands:

//---Delete Configuration Cahce
php artisan config:cache
//---Clear Application Cache
php artisan cache:clear