How to fix server error on WordPress.org

Steps for WordPress.org

1. Enable debug logging in wp-config.php: set define('WP_DEBUG', true); define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true); define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false); and read /wp-content/debug.log for the exact error.
2. In your hosting control panel, check the PHP error log for fatal errors and the exact file/line.
3. Deactivate all plugins via Plugins > Installed Plugins > Bulk Action > Deactivate, then reactivate one by one to find the culprit.
4. Switch to a default WordPress theme (Appearance > Themes) to rule out theme-level errors.
5. Increase PHP memory: add define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M'); to wp-config.php or set memory_limit = 256M in php.ini.
6. After fixing, turn off debug mode and submit the URL in Google Search Console > URL Inspection > Request Indexing.

What is server error?

An HTTP 500 (or any 5xx) response means your web server encountered an error and could not deliver the page — instead of your store content, visitors and search-engine crawlers receive an error message. Common culprits include broken app/plugin code, a crashed database connection, exhausted server memory, a misconfigured hosting environment, or a recent theme/code change that introduced a bug. Unlike a 404 ("page not found"), a 5xx error tells crawlers the page should exist but the server failed to produce it.

Google explicitly drops URLs from its index when they persistently return 5xx errors — your products, categories, and blog posts simply disappear from search results, costing you organic traffic and revenue. Even intermittent 5xx errors waste your crawl budget: Googlebot retries and eventually de-prioritises your site, slowing the indexing of new and updated pages. Shoppers who land on a broken page immediately leave, driving up bounce rates and signalling poor quality to both users and search engines. If high-revenue pages stay broken long enough, recovering their rankings can take weeks or months even after the fix.

See the complete Server error guide for every platform and the full background.