I have my Wordpress on Shared IIS hosting using Plesk. Today, just by itself, some of my uploaded files started to give this error:
HTTP Error 500.50 - URL Rewrite Module Error. The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred.
Most likely causes: IIS received the request; however, an internal error occurred during the processing of the request. The root cause of this error depends on which module handles the request and what was happening in the worker process when this error occurred. IIS was not able to access the web.config file for the Web site or application. This can occur if the NTFS permissions are set incorrectly. IIS was not able to process configuration for the Web site or application. The authenticated user does not have permission to use this DLL. The request is mapped to a managed handler but the .NET Extensibility Feature is not installed.
Things you can try: Ensure that the NTFS permissions for the web.config file are correct and allow access to the Web server's machine account. Check the event logs to see if any additional information was logged. Verify the permissions for the DLL. Install the .NET Extensibility feature if the request is mapped to a managed handler. Create a tracing rule to track failed requests for this HTTP status code. For more information about creating a tracing rule for failed requests, click here.
The interesting thing is that, when a file is uploaded, it's other dimension versions are created, and I have no problem accessing those. But when I try to access the original file, I'm getting that error. When I try to inspect file permissions on my Plesk control panel, the wp-content and the uploads folder does have the write permission to my user, but when I check the problematic file, Plesk can't access it from the control panel too:
Unable to get the object (C:\Inetpub\vhosts\PATH-TO-MY-IMAGE) security info: (5) Access is denied. at execute "C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\Plesk\admin\bin\filemng.exe" MY_USER_NAME --permissions --list-common "--file=C:\Inetpub\vhosts\PATH-TO-MY-IMAGE" "--accounts=tmpB575.tmp"(RunTime::RunAsUser::run line 260) (Error code 1) ---------------------- Debug Info -------------------------------
I can't even read the permissions on that file. Trying to delete the file using FileZilla results in an error too. This happened to SOME files today, and NOT to others, regardless of upload order, file name or type.
I've checked out many pages regarding this, but they all point to one thing: editing PHP.ini file to change the upload folder. After some search I've created a new PHP.ini like this:
upload_tmp_dir = "C:\Inetpub\vhosts\PATH_TO_A_FOLDER_THAT_I_CAN_WRITE_TO_IN_MY_HTTPDOCS_FOLDER"
Uploaded it to my httpdocs folder, restarted my app pool from Plesk, but no avail. I try uploading new files and I still get the same error. What I haven't understood is that why this started happening today and why is this happening completely randomly (I haven't changed any setting, I haven't entered into any settings pages for weeks). Is this something related to my configuration or should I contact my hosting provider?
It turned out to be a problem with my hosting company at their side. There was nothing I could do.