How to Solve YouTube 500 Internal Server Error

Fun fact; did you know people search for HTTP 500 error youtube server status over twice as many times as they look up HTTP error 404? We all know what 404 means; it’s even a common contemporary cultural reference. But there’s still a shocking lack of knowledge on what error 500 means.

Turns out, there’s not just one problem that can cause your browser to display the youtube 500 Internal Server Error Message when trying to access YouTube. Often, there is not much the client (ie you) can do about fixing it because it is a problem with the Server itself. However, there are also a few other causes that may result in your PC displaying this error, and they are somewhat administrable. We’re going to summarise a few of those causes here and tell you what you can do to take care of it, if anything can be done at all. If you’d rather only read the fixes, scroll to the last heading in this post for a list of possible solutions.

YouTube Error 500

If you’re familiar with website design and how the internet works, you’ll know about many things that a simple website relies on to load properly across the world. Even if you’re an amateur website builder, you might have heard of terms like PHP, server hosting or SQL enabled database. A myriad of factors contribute to a website’s proper operation, and each being obstructed or otherwise negatively inclined can cause tens of errors displayed under various error codes. Here are some reasons you can encounter the 500 Server Error.

1. Your PHP Timed out
   What is PHP? Think of it like the website’s script, the plan that tells it where things go when you click something or browse over something and the like. There are files on the server that contain information that is revealed to your browser running the web page. If this takes too much time, either due to poor connectivity or problems in the server, it’s called a PHP Timeout. There are complexities, but that’s about the gist of it. This can cause a Server Error 500 message.
2. There are incongruities in Permissions
   Due to faulty programming or changes in connectivity, you may not have permission to view or alter data you’re interested in. If your site shows the 500 error, it could stem from improper programming or changes in important files that require corrections to be made to the code.
3. The server has crashed
   If a server is bombarded with traffic at the same time, its infrastructure might prove insufficient to carry information around to the world. This is rare in websites that have their own dedicated servers, and this might rarely be the case with YouTube which being such a big player surely has a flurry of servers lined to cater to users that visit it in millions. Still, it’s always better to give a complete set of causes.

There could be other reasons too. But instead of listing them all out, let’s cover how to correct YouTube 500 Error.

How to Rectify HTTP Error 500?

There are a bunch of methods you can try to make the error code 500 go away. Here are a few tried and tested ones that work most of the time.

1. Try the Three Rs of Troubleshooting; Refresh, Retry and Reboot
   You can refresh the page; hopefully, the problem was only temporary and caused by momentarily high traffic. If refreshing a particular page of a website doesn’t work, one can try dialing the main URL of the website and navigate to the particular page once again. If you’re worried you might not remember where you found the page in the first place, copy the URL to the notepad to have it before your eyes in case you get lost. If that doesn’t work either, close and restart your browser, then your router, and maybe even your PC.
2. Try a different browser
   Sometimes, the browser can be loaded with cookies and cache that don’t allow it to load a website properly. Or they might be experiencing a bug themselves. Using a different browser often works for me.
3. Check your internet browser’s proxy settings and VPN
   If you usually use a proxy setting to access the internet, you should try switching to a different one. Similarly, VPNs can often slow things down as far as things loading in time are concerned. Try halting your VPN or switching the IP address to a different location or country.
4. Try again later
   If nothing seems to work, it just might be a problem with the website or your IP, and they’re probably working on it as you’re trying to get it to run. Give it some time and return later.
5. Call Customer Care
   If the website doesn’t seem to be working only for you, or it has been a long time since the error surfaced and it still hasn’t been resolved, there are a number of customer care numbers you could call. You might want to enquire with your ISP or internet company. IF it is your website that’s down, you might want to consult with the customer care representatives of the design service (like WordPress or Wix) you used, as well as the hosting you bought. A lot of these companies also have very active social media channels and handles and pages, which you can message or tag with your complaints, or maybe even make a hashtag. It might get them to respond publicly about the cause of the problem, and maybe even win you some followers or retweets.

There are other HTTP 5xx errors that have similar causes as well, each indicating a different kind of problem. You can also find more about the kind of 500 error you have encountered and specifics about it in the report Microsoft prepares about it (look up IIS Codes). It’s informative to know more about what exactly is going wrong with the website you’re trying to access, but it isn’t much help unless you own the website or are engaged as a programmer or developer for it. Was this list of solutions helpful in YouTube 500 Internal Server Error? Let us know.