500 Internal Server Error

What 500 Internal Server Error means {#what}

The server hit an unexpected condition it couldn’t handle. The generic catch-all for server-side failures. If you don’t know which 5xx to use, this is it. Check your logs — something threw an exception.

When you’ll see a 500 {#when}

• Unhandled exception in application code
• Null pointer / missing variable in server logic
• Database query failure
• Misconfiguration

When to use 500 {#use}

• Use as fallback when no more specific 5xx applies
• Never leak internal error details (stack traces, DB errors) in the response body — log them server-side