500 Internal Server Error

We fucked up.

What it properly means

The server hit a situation it does not know how to handle.

Class
5xx Server error: we fucked up
Defined in
RFC 9110, section 15.6.1

Get one yourself

This endpoint really answers with 500. Point your client at it and see what it does.

curl -i https://httpcodes.dev/api/500

People mix this up with

  • 500503 Service Unavailable

    Broken, or just busy?

    500 means something went wrong that nobody planned for, usually a bug. 503 means the server is knowingly unavailable for now and you should try again later.