WordPress and Managed Hosting in IIS 7.0
I ran into an interesting roadblock trying to set up this very blog. I wanted to take the out-of-the-box WordPress installation and throw it on a managed hosting solution, no biggy.
I installed Apache 2.2.13 and MySql locally and was able to simulate the entire install perfectly. On the web server this did not work, I was greated with a friendly (but completely unusful) custom 500 error with no description.
A quick Google search lead to this forum thread which revealed a solution for viewing the true 500 error on an IIS 7.0 managed hosting solution, which involves dropping a web.config file in the site root with the following code…
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<httpErrors errorMode="Detailed"/>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
This is of course a no brainer for those used to creating .NET web applications, but it was funny to see this in a site that was running no .NET code at all (WordPress is PHP). Oddly enough, this completely fixed my problem. The custom 500 error went away and my super easy to use WordPress setup page appeared. I’d like to look into why changing the error mode ‘fixed’ stuff, but I can live with the black magic for now.
Congrats on the blog, duder! I will be back often and again :)
Hey, I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say GREAT blog!…..I”ll be checking in on a regularly now….Keep up the good work! :)
- Marc Shaw
Thanks for the response! Sorry for the delay in approving your comment, I’m getting back from a trip overseas and I’m just digging out from underneath piles of comment SPAM. :) I hope to put up more useful (or at least entertaining substance), later!