404, 500, 502, 504, and More Errors on Web Pages, What do they Mean?

404, 500, 502, 504, and More Errors on Web Pages, What do they Mean?

Errors on Web Pages

Indeed, you have ever tried to open a web page in the browser and have been pleasantly surprised that you have received an error message instead of the page. Today we will see what these errors mean on web pages and what you can do when you come across one.

Some of these codes are more famous than others, so almost everyone knows the 404 error, but there are more than 60 codes, although not all are errors. We will see what these codes are and their meanings, grouped by type.

What are Status Codes

Let’s start at the beginning. What are these codes? These are the codes that a server returns, subsequently receiving an HTTP request. Also, that serves to identify if everything has gone well or there has been an error. When everything goes well, you never see any code since this exchange happens between your browser and the server.

For example, when you try to open an image on the Internet, the browser appeals to the server’s image. If altogether goes well, the server will return a code 200 (which means OK), but if the image does not exist, it will produce a code 404 (which means not found). These codes come together into five categories: 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500.

Status Codes 100

Status codes that start with 100 are not errors but merely informational. As a user, you will never see them, but behind the scenes indicate that the request has been customary, and the process continues.

Status Codes 200

These codes also indicate that everything has gone correctly. The request has been received, processed, and returned successfully. Therefore, you will never see them in your browser, as they mean that everything has gone well.

Status Codes 300

Status codes beginning with 300 are related to redirects. Servers use these codes to tell the browser that the page or resource has moved. As a user, you will not see these codes, although a page could automatically redirect you to another.

Status Codes 400

The 400 statuses correspond to client errors, and you will often see them. It is the case of the well-known 404 error, which appears when the page you tried to find does not exist. It is, therefore, a client error (the web address was wrong).

404 Not Found

The most famous status code of all indicates that the resource is not available on the server. Maybe it was in the past and has been deleted or misspelled the web address. If you receive this error, the address you entered is correct, and nothing is missing or excess. You can also insert the address into the Wayback Machine to see if it existed in the past.

Status Codes 500

While 400 status codes involve errors from the client (from you, your browser, or your connection), 500 errors are errors from the server-side. The server may have a temporary problem, and there isn’t much you can do except try again later.

500 Internal Server Error

Second in popularity after the 404 error, the 500 error is a generic error indicating a problem with the server. Nothing more concrete is specified, so the problem can be of any kind, from being overloaded to currently making some internal changes so that something has stopped working. As a user, you can wait and try again later.

503 Service Unavailable

The 500 error is more generic, saying that something is wrong with the server, but the 503 states that the server is not available at the moment. It may be because you remain overloaded with too many requests or because you are currently undergoing maintenance. Try again in a few minutes.

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