Errors during website migration to a new environment are an absolute norm and in many cases they are inevitable. The first thing you need to understand when you experience errors is that they are our friends and helpers. You can use them to understand the reason why the website does not work and fix them. It is much worse if the website does not work, but no errors can be found. The most common errors encountered by website owners:
1. HTTP 500
As a rule, this means incorrect or prohibited on the given server directive in the .htaccess file. You can check it by renaming the .htaccess file, for instance into .htaccess_. This way, you will prevent any impact on the request. If the website page opens after you renamed the file, this file was definitely the issue.

Return its previous name and comment line by line, every time checking the website functioning. If after the next comment, your website starts functioning, you encountered a directive which prevented website operation.
Remove comments for all others and continue working with your website. To learn more about the need in this directive for the website, contact the developer (if the website was developed by someone else), look on the web or contact the hosting platform’s support.

A special case is when all directives in a given file are correct or the file is empty, but the website still returns error 500. The main reason for this are BOM symbols in the file. We recommend observing the standards and using utf-8 file encoding without BOM. You can remove BOM symbol using notepad++ or any text editor with similar functionality. Or you can simply copy the text from the htaccess file, then delete this file, create a new one with the same name and paste the text there. Using file manager on the hosting platform, it will be created in the correct encoding.

2. Error 403
This error means that there are not enough permissions to view files or the website’s root folder contains no index file. These can be either incorrectly set permissions for files and folders or a directive in the .htaccess file that prohibits viewing the website, or a header returned directly by the engine (in the rarest cases).

Check whether website files are uploaded into its root folder. If yes, see if there is an index.html or index.php among them.

The default permissions are 644 for files and 755 for folders. You can reset permissions using the file manager in the hosting control panel or through the FileZilla FTP client.

The .htaccess file can be easily checked for such directives with the search phrase deny from. This directive disallows access to the folder.

To find the reasons for this header appearing in the engine, you need to contact the developer.

3. Error 404 on website subpages
The home page is still displayed. You did not move the .htaccess file to the hosting platform. This file is hidden by default, so users often forget to move it during the migration.

4. Error 503/508
Check disc space. Such errors are characteristic of exceeded disc quota. If disc space is exceeded, delete extra files to free up space or upgrade your plan. If there are no problems with disc space, the error may be caused by server overload. This header may be also returned by the PHP script if it contains internal issues. In both cases, we recommend contacting the support team.

5. Blank page
Check the index.php/index.html file. It should be empty. If it is not, check disc space, as this may be caused by an incorrectly created engine cache. If the disc quota is exceeded, check the log file. Usually, an internal engine error is written in it.

• In the cPanel, it is located in the website’s root folder and is called error_log; some errors are also written in the “Errors” section of this control panel.
• In the ISPmanager, logs can be found under WWW – WWW-log files.
• In the BrainyCP, logs are located under Information – Logs (select an item with your name and _error ending from the dropdown).

6. Error establishing a database connection
This error is characteristic of WordPress. Incorrect database connection credentials in the wp--config.php file. Check database name, username and password. Check if the database user is assigned permissions to work with the database. Check if database tables were uploaded using phpMyAdmin.

Errors during website migration to a new environment are an absolute norm and in many cases they are inevitable. The first thing you need to understand when you experience errors is that they are our friends and helpers. You can use them to understand the reason why the website does not work and fix them. It is much worse if the website does not work, but no errors can be found. The most common errors encountered by website owners:
1. HTTP 500
As a rule, this means incorrect or prohibited on the given server directive in the .htaccess file. You can check it by renaming the .htaccess file, for instance into .htaccess_. This way, you will prevent any impact on the request. If the website page opens after you renamed the file, this file was definitely the issue. Return its previous name and comment line by line, every time checking the website functioning. If after the next comment, you see that your website starts functioning, you encountered a directive which prevented website operation. Remove comments for all others and continue working with your website. To learn more about the need in this directive for the website, contact the developer (if the website was developed by someone else), look on the web or contact the hosting platform’s support.

A special case is when all directives in a given file are correct or the file is empty, but the website still returns error 500. The main reason for this are BOM symbols in the file. We recommend observing the standards and using utf-8 file encoding without BOM. You can remove BOM symbols using notepad++ or any text editor with similar functionality. Or you can simply copy the text from the htaccess file, then delete this file, create a new one with the same name and paste the text there. Using file manager on the hosting platform, it will be created in the correct encoding.

2. Error 403
This error means that there are not enough permissions to view files or the website’s root folder contains no index file. These can be either incorrectly set permissions for files and folders or a directive in the .htaccess file that prohibits viewing the website, or a header returned directly by the engine (in the rarest cases).

• Check whether you uploaded website files into its root folder. If yes, see if there is an index.html or index.php among them.
• The default permissions: 644 for files and 755 for folders. You can reset permissions using the file manager in the hosting control panel or through the FileZilla FTP client.
• The htaccess file can be easily checked for such directives with the search phrase deny from. This directive disallows access to the folder.
• To find the reasons for this header appearing in the engine, you need to contact the developer.

3. Error 404 on website subpages
The home page is still displayed. You did not move the .htaccess file to the hosting platform. This file is hidden by default, so users often forget to move it during the migration.

4. Error 503/508
Check disc space. Such errors are characteristic of exceeded disc quota. If disc space is exceeded, delete extra files to free up space or upgrade your plan.
If there are no problems with disc space, the error may be caused by server overload. This header may be also returned by the PHP script if it contains internal issues. In both cases, we recommend contacting the support team.

5. Blank page
Check the index.php/index.html file. It should be empty. If it is not, check disc space, as this may be caused by an incorrectly created engine cache. If the disc quota is exceeded, check the log file. Usually, an internal engine error is written in it. In the cPanel, it is located in the website’s root folder and is called error_log; some errors are also written in the “Errors” section of this control panel. In the ISPmanager, logs can be found under WWW – WWW-log files. In the BrainyCP, logs are located under Information – Logs (select an item with your name and _error ending from the dropdown).

6. Error establishing a database connection
This error is characteristic of WordPress. Incorrect database connection credentials in the wp--config.php file. Check database name, username and password. Check if the database user is assigned permissions to work with the database. Check if database tables were uploaded using phpMyAdmin.