Date Published: 1999-09-01

by Jennifer Hesse
© 1999, CGI Script Center
edited with permission by D. Jasmine Merced

The most frequently asked questions by technical support representatives receive usually involve error messages. Error messages occur when the server software is trying to interpret what the CGI script is trying to tell it.

Following are the four most common error messages and what to do when you see them:

1. 500 Internal Server Error
   This is error is not only common, but also very generic. The first thing to do is contact your server's administrator and obtain an error from your server's logs. Then post the information from your server's administrator along with your configurations to the program developer.

2. Chomp error
   This error occurs if you are using a version of Perl other than Perl 5. Most programs today require Perl 5 in order to be read. "Chomp" did not exist before Perl 5, so previous versions do not understand what the script is trying to tell it to do. Solution - Upgrade to Perl 5.

3. Grep error
   Grep is a term used in Perl 5 to tell the computer to look through the script and find all of things matching a specific criteria. Similar to chomp, previous versions simply do not know what is being asked to do. Solution - Upgrade to Perl 5.

4. Can't write [filename] error
   Try re-setting your permissions settings. You will need to contact your server administrator to find out the correct permissions settings for your server. NOTE: If you are using an NT server, you will use read/write instead of 666 or 777 as you would on a UNIX server.

Jennifer Hesse is the Operations Manager at the CGI Script Center. Jennifer is also in charge of registration support and business development. She can be reached at jennifer@cgiscriptcenter.com.