500 Error When Editing Category Description

[bettysue]

I have searched and can't find a previous solution to this type of error.

Zencart v1.38a Patch level 1

When editing the category description in one category (only one that has the problem) after clicking on Save it goes to an error page which says in part:
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Internal Server Error

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

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
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So I uploaded the debug error reporting file to both admin and the store. I tried to edit the category again, got the error message and downloaded the error log.

The error log said (in part as there were several more lines with more images listed):
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[10-Aug-2010 12:29:15] PHP Warning: imagejpeg() [<a href='function.imagejpeg'>function.imagejpeg</a>]: Unable to open '/home/xxxx/public_html/bmz_cache/2/21ae752d35a79823720edc9716c6fca9.image.150x99.jpg' for writing: Permission denied in /home/xxxx/public_html/includes/classes/bmz_image_handler.class.php on line 652
[10-Aug-2010 12:29:16] PHP Warning: imagejpeg() [<a href='function.imagejpeg'>function.imagejpeg</a>]: Unable to open '/home/xxxx/public_html/bmz_cache/3/3e527ba151ae46ea72081a62aeffef4c.image.300x199.jpg' for writing: Permission denied in /home/xxxx/public_html/includes/classes/bmz_image_handler.class.php on line 652
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So I changed all the permissions in the bmz_cache to 777. Once I did that the error messages stopped, however the category edit still gave the 500 error.

I went into the database, the category table and deleted the category image just in case it was somehow still an issue. No difference and no other error messages have been generated.

I checked the account error log in CPanel, and the only error (repeated in log for each time I tried it) was:
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[Tue Aug 10 13:41:04 2010] [error] [client my ip address] File does not exist: /home/xxxx/public_html/500.shtml, referer: http://www.xxxx.com/admin directory/categories.php?cPath=&cID=9&action=edit_category
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So here I am at a loss. Any advice, words of wisdom, or help will be greatly appreciated.

betty

[DrByte]

1. the bmz_cache errors in your logs are completely unrelated to your admin category editing. It's good to have fixed the problem, but it's unrelated.

2. The 'cause' of the 500 error will be in your server's mod_security log, which you'll likely have to ask your hosting company for.
Most likely you're using forbidden words in your category name/description. See the related FAQ article on 500 Internal Server Errors: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/i...hp?article=390 Same issues from that article apply for category names/descriptions as for product names/descriptions.

[bettysue]

1. the bmz_cache errors in your logs are completely unrelated to your admin category editing. It's good to have fixed the problem, but it's unrelated.

2. The 'cause' of the 500 error will be in your server's mod_security log, which you'll likely have to ask your hosting company for.
Most likely you're using forbidden words in your category name/description. See the related FAQ article on 500 Internal Server Errors: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/i...hp?article=390 Same issues from that article apply for category names/descriptions as for product names/descriptions.

Hi Doc,

Sorry for the lag time in trying your suggestions, just got out of the hospital tonight.
I tried the suggestion in the FAQ to add the statement:

SecFilterInheritance Off or SecFilterScanPOST Off

I tried each one in the .htaccess file in admin however when the statements were in file (one at a time) I couldn't log into admin, it came back with a 500 error. Once I removed the statement admin loaded normally.

I downloaded the server error log and the last 2 errors that have my ip address by it say:

72.188.73.112 - - [26/Aug/2010:01:35:15 -0400] "GET /admin directory/includes/languages/english/images/buttons/button_new_category.gif HTTP/1.1" 200 576 "http://www.thegoldennib.com/admin directory/categories.php" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C; InfoPath.2; OfficeLiveConnector.1.5; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)"

72.188.73.112 - - [26/Aug/2010:01:35:13 -0400] "GET /admin directory/categories.php HTTP/1.1" 200 58438 "http://www.thegoldennib.com/admin directory/configuration.php?gID=17&cID=330" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C; InfoPath.2; OfficeLiveConnector.1.5; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)"

I don't know if they mean anything.

thank you,

betty

[DrByte]

Apparently your hosting company's configured their server to prevent you from manually disabling the mod_security protection system, and thereby have made adding those options to .htaccess cause 500 Internal Server Errors.

Additionally, the log info you extracted is the apache access log, which is different from the apache errorlog, which are both different from the mod_security log which is what you're really after so that you can find out what "rule" is getting triggered so that you can ask your hosting company to whitelist that rule for your domain/website.

You'll need to ask your hosting company for help to get the solution you need. They'll need to know what page (complete URL) you're accessing when you click Submit and get the error, and probably even the details of what you had keyed into the description/title/etc fields. They'll need to know the exact date/time when you triggered the problem, too. Hopefully they'll be cooperative for you.