[Matt]

I’ve just set up a clean install of WP on a subdomain of my main domain to test Buddypress. After installing it and clicking ‘Activate’ I got the error ‘HTTP Error 500 (Internal Server Error)’.

I now can’t access the Admin part of the site at all, but I can access the front-end. Could it be something to do with the fact I’ve installed it on a subdomain (error in the .htaccess file perhaps)?

Any suggestions?

[Paul Wong-Gibbs]

Look in your web server’s error log; what messages do you get?

[Matt]

Here’s one of the error messages (I’ve removed IP addresses and paths):

[Fri Jun 03 12:41:34 2011] [error] [client …] FastCGI: server “/var/www/fcgi/php-cgi” stderr: PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /[…]/wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php on line 1474

It looks like Buddypress is trying to use more than 32MB, which is the amount allocated to my server. I’m not sure if I can change this as it’s a shared host? Is there any way around this?

[Matt]

I’ve just done a new clean install of everything (WP, DB, Buddypress) and the same thing has happened again.

I thought it might be because I’d not changed my permalink setting to anything other than the default, but clearly not. I guess it’s this memory issue which is strange because it’s never been a problem with other plugins/scripts that I’ve used before. Is there any reason why Buddypress is so ‘greedy’ with memory?

[aces]

Yeah, I’ve had problems – see details of memory usage here: https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/rss-error-in-dashboard#post-88690
If you are on 1and1, then their newer packages may have more memory available….

[Matt]

Interesting. I’m with Fasthosts and while they’re fine for most everything what you get is what you get, so I can’t change the memory allocation.

I’m actually thinking of switching to Media Temple – anyone know if Buddypress works on their Grid-Service?

[Andrea Rennick]

Yes, but I’m not a fan of the grid service in general. Winds up being slow.

[Matt]

Another hosting company I’ve heard are quite good is Site5 – does anyone know what they’re like?

[iamyeti]

I am using site5. So far so good. I have a buddypress multisite on their shared hosting service and working just fine. Just installed today, so I have not tested everything yet.

I had a 500 internal server error, but turned out to be my .htaccess file and site5 found the error when I missed it.

[Hooblah2u2]

What did you do, Iamyeti, to fix the .htaccess file?

[stwc]

32Mb probably won’t cut it; running any kind of busy BP install on shared hosting is going to be dodgy. I did so for a while on my Dreamhost account before I went for a VPS and it was fine, but you may not be so lucky with other hosts.

I would avoid Media Temple. Nice site design; not such great service, is what I’ve been told.