HTTP status codes consist of three-digit numbers that inform web browsers about the status of a page’s response. You may encounter some of these errors while surfing the Internet, or you could have noticed them in your own hosting account.
Here’s a brief guide to aid you in comprehending the most frequent error codes, along with recommendations on how to resolve the issues.
400 — Bad Request
The web server was unable to interpret a malformed script. This issue is typically caused by programming errors. It is advisable to consult your developer or software supplier to address this problem.
401 — Authentication Required
To access the page, a username and password are necessary. Attempting to access it without these credentials will result in a 401 — Authentication Required error message.
403 — Forbidden
Forbidden errors occur when a person attempts to access a directory, file, or script without the necessary permissions. For instance, if a script is only accessible to the user and cannot be accessed by others, they will encounter a 403 error.
Additionally, the presence of invalid index files and empty directories may also lead to 403 errors.
404 — Not Found
If users try to reach URLs that aren’t valid, they encounter 404 errors. This issue can stem from reasons such as incorrect URLs, absent files, or redirects to URLs that are no longer available.
500 — Internal Server Error
This error is quite broad and indicates that there is an issue with how the website is showing up, but specific details may not be easily accessible. In Linux cPanel hosting accounts, 500 errors are frequently triggered by faulty .htaccess files or incorrect rules within them. In the case of Windows, these errors usually stem from invalid requests made through a web.config file.
To find out what causes the issue:
- Linux — Review your Apache web server error logs.
- Windows — Enable detailed errors in your
web.config
file using the following code:

For more information, check out the list of status code definitions at W3.org:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html
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