Random Internal Server Errors

ZachH

I've made a site that gathers information from a couple of search engines. The site usually works just fine, but somethime there is a problem. The problem I get random Internal Server Errors. Not every time just every 10 times the script runs. It is completely random, it does not matter which parameters are used. You can run the script with the exact same parameters 10 times and 1 of them will generate an Internal Server Error.

I’m using fopen() to retrieve the information from the search engines. I used to use a combination of file_exists and file(), but someone told me that fopen() was better.

So what on earth can I do? I presume the Internal Server Error comes when the script cannot get in touch with the Search Engines. This knowledge does not help me a lot because I don’t know what to do with it.

Is there some kind of Error Handling that can help me?

Or is there a problem with the host? The reason why asking about the host because I never get this error when I do it on my local machine.

You can test the site here: Statbrain.com

I’ve tried everything so please help me, I’m completely lost.

nemonoman

my guess is that one or more of the search engines you are querying is blocking repeat requests from your site...yahoo, for example might have a 30-second minimum delay between requests, etc.

When you query one of these locked site(s), your query times out or returns no values or unexpected values, and a 'server error' is generated.

ZachH

I think you're right, but is there a way to aboid the Internal Server Error with Error Handling? I might not get the data, but that doesn't matter I just want to avoid the Internal Server Error.