Movable Type Knowledge Base: 500 On CGI Script Files

Question

I get a 500 Internal Server Error when trying to run the Movable Type CGI files.

Answer

This is a very generic error which occurs when a Perl script fails to execute. The standard things to check are:

Is the path to Perl correct in the first line of each script?
Were all of the script files uploaded to your server, and in ASCII mode? (Check for missing files and do not rely on an Auto-Detect feature for upload mode.)
Have you set the proper permissions (UNIX equivalent of 755; read/write/execute) on the .cgi files?
Is the version of Perl on your server at least 5.004_4 or higher?

You should also make sure you are running the scripts from a folder that is properly configured to run CGI scripts. If you have created a sub-folder in the cgi-enabled folder, you may need to set its permissions to 755 as well.

If you are running Movable Type on a Windows server, it may not recognize .cgi as a valid script extension. See Configure Windows to use .cgi for Perl scripts for more information.

If your web host is GoDaddy, please see "500 Error on GoDaddy servers".

If the above diagnostics check out correctly, see if your host provides you with error logs for your account. Often, these logs will report more details about what caused the error.

Another option is to use any tools your host provides for debugging Perl scripts.

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