Dreamhost: fix internal server error without tech support!

January 7, 2009 / Filed under: Hosting, Dreamhost, Errors

Sites fail to load for all sorts of reasons, but two common errors are often presented:

Site Temporarily Unavailable

We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/
tech support immediately to have them rectify this.

error id: "bad_httpd_conf"

Also:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was 
unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@yoursite.com and
inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

If you are unsure of any technical changes that might fix it, you might immediately think to contact support for your hosting company. But that could take hours or days, when you need your site up now.

If you use Dreamhost, you're in luck. There's a quick way to "reset" your hosting without having to contact support directly. You can do it yourself through the Web Panel.

Log in and go to Manage Domains.

Screenshot of Dreamhost Web Panel

Choose your domain and click Edit under the Web Hosting column.

Screenshot of Dreamhost Web Panel

Don't actually make any changes - just click Change fully hosted settings now! which will "reset" something on Dreamhost's end.

Screenshot of Dreamhost Web Panel

This will typically clear up either of those errors shown above.

Comments/Mentions

# alexxfender at 5/26/2009 1:00 pm cst

I always get this Internal Server Error at dreamhost.. and i did as you suggest but doesn't help at all..

# kay at 7/27/2009 1:57 pm cst

Hello,

What i like with dreamhost PS is that they take care about everything.

Can you advice me any dedicated server easy to use for someone who knows nothing about servers ?

I want somebody to repair when it breaks, is there any company selling dedicated servers with a support as reliable as dreamhost one? (at least they reply fast!)

I want to move because my websites are not optimized and even set up at 4000 MB my websites show thousand of errors pages everyday, so better get 8GB dedicated for the same price as dreamhost 4GB PS !

Thanks for your help.

# wimal at 8/20/2009 12:01 am cst

Error: Connection timed out Error: Could not connect to server Status: Waiting to retry... Status: Resolving address of sisyphus.dreamhost.com Status: Connecting to 208.113.137.245:21... Status: Connection attempt failed with "ETIMEDOUT - Connection attempt timed out". Error: Could not connect to server

i get this error suddenly. It all worked fine till yesterday. pls help.

# Jim at 9/14/2009 12:37 pm cst

Thank you very much, fixed me right up!

# llooo8oooll at 10/22/2009 5:28 pm cst

it works thanks a lot ^^

# Mark at 1/13/2010 1:19 pm cst

I get this "Internal Server Error" with Dreamhost all the time... or so it seems... sometimes if happens dozens of times per day... then I could go a few weeks rarely seeing it.

I contacted dreamhost about it and have a theory, party based on one of their tech support responses to me about the issue:

"did some more investigating and it appears quite a few of your processes are being killed by procwatch. What this means that there are processes your site is using that are going over specific limits. We kill(stop) the process before they crash the server.

"From what I saw your user(salvemaria) was over the memory limit. Your user's combined set of processes were over the memory limit and some processes were killed right away. This is the reason you are getting internal server error messages.

"Another option would be to upgrade to a Dreamhost PS: http://dreamhostps.com

We do not install procwatch on the private server, so you are free to run your scripts (granted you give the PS enough memory!).

So my theory is that the memory levels on dreamhosts regular servers might be set strategically low in order to push people towards getting the more lucrative private servers, to avoid this issue.

My Joomla site doesn't have much traffic, perhaps about 30 people a day, no more than 8 at a time (max). But it does have a Kunena Forum, Community Builder Component and a ton of other components and JoomlaWatch, etc., that may be automatically running a lot of code, but still this wouldn't explain why things are fine for weeks and then all of a sudden are HELL for several days.

By the way, dreamhost support is EXCELLENT, they get back to you fast and are very knowledgeable. I would recommended there services is it weren't for this INTERNAL SERVER ERROR thing that keeps popping up... and I don't know if other hosts would be any better.

Cheers!