Internal Server Error on PHP Scripts

Sometimes when trying to run or install a PHP script you’ll see a screen with heading “Internal Server Error”. People usually rush to contact the script developer but this is the worst thing to do. Internal Server Error means server misconfiguration and the developer is unlikely to be able to help you.

Here is what to do:

1. Check file permissions. In  more than 90% of the cases the error is caused by wrong permissions on the uploaded file.

2. Check your server error log. Poorly configured servers will often output Internal server error when there is fatal PHP error for some reason. Fortunately these errors are recorded in the server error log. Even if you don’t know what the errors mean you’ll have some useful information to send to the script developer instead of asking them to guess out the reason for the Internal server error.

3. Contact your hosting support. You should contact your hosting support before contacting the software developer. They are responsible for your server setup and you are paying them every month to keep things running smooth.

WatuPRO 4.7 – Likert Scale Maker, Progress Bar, Design Themes, and More

The latest version of our WordPress quiz maker WatuPRO is now online:

  1. Added quiz design themes. More information here.
  2. New free addon: Likert Scale Survey Maker. Information and free download at this page.
  3. Added option to delete all quiz results of a selected user
  4. Added option to automatically delete user quiz data when the user account is deleted from admin
  5. Added option to keep each certificate from multiple quiz attempts from the same user on the same quiz
  6. Added %%CONTACT%% variable to display the extra contact fields (company and phone) in the “Final page” and the email sent to user. Available are also variables for the individual contact fields that can be used there and in the certificates.
  7. Added progress bar option for all paginated quizzes.
  8. User’s feedback on questions can now be seen in structured way. Just follow the link “Feedback on questions” from the “View results” page on the quiz.
  9. Improved question category management screen + rich text editor for category descriptions
  10. Improved the indentation of multiple-line numbered questions
  11. Improved handling of multiple-line contents and HTML tags when exporting questions
  12. The social sharing options are now embedded in the plugin and you no longer need the social sharing addon. Added options to share by email, Google +, and LinkedIn.
  13. You can switch off the rich text editor from certificate editing to avoid your HTML being messed by it
  14. Question export CSVs now can be configured to use comma or tab. Default is comma.
  15. Added variable %%BETTER-THAN%% to show the user what % of users performed worse than them on the quiz.
  16. Low memory mode – learn more here.
  17. Survey questions no longer ignore the points assigned to their answers.
  18. [Intelligence module] A new advanced setting lets you configure “single choice” questions to automaitcally proceed or show the answer.
  19. [Intelligence module] Paypal payments now support sandbox mode and open CURL connection when such is available.
  20. [Reporting module] Fixed problem with the poll shortcode and multiple-answer questions
  21. Fixed problems with question hints on quizzes that reuse questions from other quizzes
  22. The shortcodes that list quizzes will also include quizzes published with the User Choice addon

The upgrade is sent by a newsletter to eligible subscribers. If your subscription has expired you can renew with 60% discount. We are sending the promo code by a newsletter too, but in case you didn’t get it, please email us.

Low Memory Mode in WatuPRO

Plugin version required: 4.6.8.1 or newer.

This feature is built to help users who have too many quizzes and questions to still be able to use the quiz plugin WatuPRO on affordable shared hosts. You can’t expect wonders from shared hosting services and if you have many huge quizzes you may need to move to a VPS. But before this you can enable the “low memory mode” feature to reduce the resource usage at the cost of sacrificing a couple of small features.

How To Enable It

Go to WatuPRO Settings page and check the checbox saying “Enable low memory mode to reduce the server resources usage”.

What Does it Do

For the moment this mode reduces the server load on your Manage Quizzes and Manage Questions pages:

  • On Manage Quizzes page it hides the column “No. questions” and the number of users who took the quiz.
  • On Manage Questions page it hides the number of answers to a question.
  • Switches off the dashboard stats widget (the one in your main admin page that shows number of quizzes taken today, most popular quiz, and so on). The stats widget can be switched off individually from another option (without entering low memory mode)

For the moment these are the only changes applied by the low memory mode. As soon as we see pain points for users with high number of quizzes and questions we will add more optimizations.

The low memory mode can of course be used even if you already have a VPS or dedicated server to reduce the server resources usage.

What Else to Do

  • Avoid using the feature “Automatically store user progress as they go from page to page” on paginated quizzes. It causes server requests on each page change.
  • Avoid using the “show answer” button or the option that lets clicking on a single-choice immediately reveal the answer.
  • When a quiz is submitted an update query runs on student answers table. So if you have hundreds of thousands records in that table submitting a quiz may start taking more time. You may want to look at reducing your database data.

We have customers running this plugin on very heavy traffic sites with a lot of concurrent users. The plugin is as optimized as possible to the best of our knowledge. If you believe there is a problem on your server you need to provide us with information which specific query is slowing it down so we can take action. Usually it’s not WatuPRO but a different plugin that overloads the processor.