About Error 500

              Since last few days,i am frequently getting this error message -called "error 500",preventing me from opening this site.At times,even if it opens,the games would not open.I even tried updating the Firefox version.It seemed to be OK for about a whole day & then the thing kept on repeating.

       The message says that there is server problem & the site will not be available for some time.But,had this been the server problem,nobody should be able to open it.But i saw that my friends are not having this problem during the period when i was facing it.Similarly,one other member in a group complained that he had to loose 33 of his games on time basis due to this problem,when myself was totally OK & without a problem.

        Now,my queries are-

1.what is wrong with the site server,that only particular members are prevented for a particular time period from opening the site?

2.Will the site take the responsibility of the lost games due to this error ,as happened in the case of the other member ?

Your security vice maybe rated too high,i have had simular issues,i have damn good fire walls etc... and it actually effects my messaging constantly.

Thanks for the advice!But there is no protection like FireFox installed in my computer.What so ever set up was there till now is unchanged .Then ,i really wonder,what should be a triggering factor for this problem!

Count yourself lucky you didn't get the more common "502 bad gateway". According to Erik: "uh oh!! if it says 502 error then that means your computer will blowup in 502 hours!!!"

Error 500 is a catchall - when the server cannot be more specific (according to Google). I would guess that it could be worthwhile to clear your cache as maybe your PC is sending some junk along with the HTML. Alternatively, it may be related to the path from your PC to chess.com's server - which is why it would affect some members but not others. The best time to complain about this problem is while it is happening - although you can't get through at the time! You could collect some diagnostics such as traceroute www.chess.com the next time it occurs (see this other discussion intermittent-connection-issue-affecting-all-site-areas).

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did clear the catche ,before i updated my FireFox.Do we need to clear them daily?

       Could you please guide me about the steps that are supposed to be implemented,if one wants to trace the route www.chess.com ?I read about it in the link that you provied about other member with similar problem(ironically,one feels better if somebody is having the same problem:-) ),but couldn't just comprehend how exactly it works!Do we need to compare this route with some other route ?

I think you should do a baseline traceroute on a day when chess.com is performing normally, then do another comparison one whenever you get these types of server errors. Then send both in.

If the problem is related to the route (and this is pure conjecture on my part), the differences should show up between the two traceroutes.

amrita1: Are you still getting these errors?

Anyone else: is anybody getting server errors today?

 In Windows, what is traceroute and how do I use it?

The traceroute utility checks how many "hops" (transfers through other computers on a network) it takes for your computer to contact another computer. You can use traceroute if you know the other computer's IP address, web site address, or name (e.g., 129.79.1.1, www.indiana.edu, or ns.indiana.edu).

To access the utility:

1. Open the command prompt: 
   
   
   • Windows 7 or Vista: From the Start menu, in the search field, type cmd, and then press Enter.
   • Previous versions: From the Start menu, select Run... . In the "Open:" box, type cmd, and then press Enter.
2. At the command prompt, enter tracert example , where example is the IP address, name, or web site of the computer you are trying to access. For example, if you enter tracert www.indiana.edu , you should see something similar to the following:

Tracing route to www.indiana.edu [129.79.78.8] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms 168.91.41.1

2 10 ms 20 ms 20 ms indy-bloomington-s4-6.ivy.tec.in.us [168.91.9.129]

3 10 ms 10 ms 20 ms akicita-lena.ivy.tec.in.us [168.91.1.4]

4 20 ms 30 ms 30 ms indnet.ivy.tec.in.us [168.91.1.130]

5 71 ms 40 ms 50 ms ind-s1-0-7-T1.ind.net [157.91.8.62]

6 80 ms 40 ms 40 ms serverfarm-atm0.ind.net [199.8.76.231]

7 60 ms 90 ms 80 ms iupui-atm6-0-100.ind.net [157.91.9.78]

8 50 ms 40 ms 90 ms indy-dmz.atm.iupui.edu [134.68.15.103]

9 * * * Request timed out.

10 40 ms 70 ms 90 ms wcc6-gw.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.8.6]

11 * 40 ms 50 ms viator.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.78.8]

Trace complete.

The first column, the hop count, represents the number of stops your information has made along the route to attempt to contact the other computer. The next three columns are the round-trip times in milliseconds for three different attempts to reach the destination. The last column is the name of the host that responded to the request.

The above example shows that a computer user on ivy.tec.in.us ran a traceroute to www.indiana.edu. On the fifth hop, the request left the Ivy Tech network and went to the ind.net network. On the eighth hop, the request went to the iupui.edu network. Finally, on the tenth hop, the request found its way to theindiana.edu network. Since there is a "Request timed out" message on the ninth hop, you might guess that there could be some problem between the iupui.edu network and the indiana.edu network. If you are seeing other problems, such as the web page at http://www.indiana.edu/ loading slowly, this could indicate the location of the problem.

In many cases, a network technician will need to analyze the problem further. To aid in this effort, you can save the output of the traceroute program as a text file by entering the following command, where example is the IP address, name, or web site you are trying to access:

tracert example > test.txt

You can then send the test.txt file to your computer support provider for further diagnosis.

http://kb.iu.edu/data/aihy.html

You could also try using different browsers if the problem recurs.

There is a setting on IE you could use called Show friendly HTTP messages. (According to this article, it is a sensible idea.)

I got error 500.

Time of error is 21:13 date 20.03.2016.

Moment before I got repeated alert. It informed me that my game with Zigz had finished.

But resuls of this error were:

1. My game with Zigz disappeared. I can't find It betveen 'archive' or 'current' games.

2. My rating skiped from 1540 to 1608.

You might put a ticket in. I saw another post today with a similar issue but the game shows up in the archive, just gives a server error when trying to retrieve it.

https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/emails/new

It’s happening now aswell

500 ??

Oh No! Server Error

heh

500 ??
Oh No! Server Error
Please be patient.

Server cooldown in 20s

what is this first my acc was closed now this?

I got error 500 just now

No, just wait 30s, your account will not delete

I havent gotten an error 500

Server 500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes Likely to be DDOS attacks or heavy usage. Also I noticed it looked like I was being auto logged out all the time. So some performance issues on chess.com servers... More hamsters! It could be something like a query to a database that takes too long and times out too. Try loosening your search if you are investigating openings for example in the games database.

500 ??
Oh No! Server Error
Please be patient.

Server cooldown in 48s

pls help ):