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Website or webmail shows 500 internal server error on Plesk: mod_fcgid: read data timeout

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Yulia Plokhotnikova
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Plesk for Linux kb: technical ABT: Group B

Applicable to:

  • Plesk for Linux

Symptoms

  • A website or webmail page is not loading and "500 internal server error" is shown after ~30-60 seconds.

  • The following errors can be found in Domains > example.com > Logs:

    CONFIG_TEXT: [warn] mod_fcgid: read data timeout in 45 seconds
    [error] Premature end of script headers
    [core:error] End of script output before headers 

  • The following error can be found in /var/log/apache2/error.log:

    CONFIG_TEXT: [warn] mod_fcgid: process XXX graceful kill fail, sending SIGKILL

Cause

The FcgidIOTimeout value - the maximum period of time the module will wait while trying to read from or write to a FastCGI application - has been exceeded.

Resolution

Increase the parameter value or optimize FastCGI application.

Domain-wide solution (click to expand)

Domain-wide solution. FcgidIOTimeout parameter for a domain is set to the same value as max_execution_time PHP parameter.

  1. Log into Plesk UI.
  2. Increase max_execution_time (e.g. to 300) in Domains > example.com > PHP settings

  3. Add the following to Domains > example.com > Apache & Nginx settings > Additional directives for HTTP and Additional directives for HTTPS:

    CONFIG_TEXT: <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
    FcgidIOTimeout 300
    </IfModule>

  4. If it does not help, increase the parameter to higher value. 

Optionally, switch the domain to FPM handler at Domains > example.com > PHP Settings.

Server-wide solution (click to expand)

Server-wide solution:

  1. Connect to the server using SSH.
  2. Open the /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/fcgid.conffile (on Debian/Ubuntu) or the /etc/httpd/conf.d/fcgid.conf file (on RedHat/CentOS/CloudLinux), edit it with text editor and increase "FcgidIdleTimeout" and "FcgidProcessLifeTime" parameters to "300" or more:

    FcgidIdleTimeout 300
    FcgidProcessLifeTime 300

  3. Reload Apache service configuration:

    On RedHat/CentOS/CloudLinux systems:

    # service httpd reload

    On Debian/Ubuntu systems:

    # service apache2 reload

  4. If it does not help, increase the value of both parameters to higher values and reload Apache service configuration.

Comments

5 comments

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    Anzhelika Khapaknysh

    Christian,

    Glad to know the issue has been fixed!

    Just for your reference, the same solution is described in this article.

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  • Avatar
    Christian

    Thanks a lot

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  • Avatar
    Christian

    In fact the problem was that I had too many connexions from users (my customers) using the webmail or at least postfix.
    I hire a guy that found that I should modify /etc/courier-imap/imapd

    He changed MAXDAEMONS to more that it was.

    MAXDAEMONS=128

    I hope that this can help anybody. Since that no more problems with error 500 or slow login in the webmail or anything slow using the webmail.

    share

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    Anzhelika Khapaknysh

    Hi @Christian!

    Directives which are mentioned in the article, are designed for Apache web server, thus they can be added in following fields only:

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    Christian

    Hello,

    When I paste the code in Additional nginx directives the code is red and I think this is wrong. My webmail is still slow from time to time. What can I do ?

    Can you help ?

    Regards
    Kris

    Configuration :
    Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
    Plesk Onyx Version 17.8.11 Update #18

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