AdSense 500 errors

[bcc1234]

I'm getting complaints from visitors about strange errors on "my" site. They describe something like:
"500 Internal Server Error then below that it has nginx/0.6.16"

I'm guessing they are talking about the AdSense blocks.

Is anybody else having the same problem?

[jchampliaud]

Adsense seems to be working fine on my sites.

[wyweb]

Look at whatever scripts you've got running on that page or pages. Make sure your permissions are correct.

[tim222]

Like the previous poster said, another javascript could be the culprit. When I'm troubleshooting AdSense problems, the first thing I do is try out a page with nothing on it but AdSense code. That means no header, no other HTML... nothing but one AdSense block. That lets you know if the problem is with the AdSense code (possibly the account itself), or something else on the page. If that works, make a copy of the page in question and name it something like test.html. Try removing other elements of the page one at a time, or in groups, until it works. At that point you've narrowed down the problem. Carefully study the code in that element.

Javascript errors are important clues. Firefox has better error reporting than IE, so it's worth a try to view it in Firefox. However those browsers are different enough that it might work in one but not the other.

[fredw]

First of all, the original poster says he's getting complaints, which I take to mean, he's not seeing the problem himself. That makes it much less likely its something directly on his page causing the problem, like javascript.

What worries me in the poster's report is the mention of NGINX along with the 500 Server error. NGINX is a Russian web server and reverse proxy program. I doubt Google would be serving anything through it. (Can anyone confirm that?) So, if people are seeing NGINX 500 Errors where your Adsense should be, then it sounds like these users have had their Adsense hijacked, like via their hosts file, or something similar.

[wyweb]

According to wikipedia it's a "lightweight web server/reverse proxy and e-mail (IMAP/POP3) proxy, licensed under a BSD-like license."

And further: "According to the January 2008 Netcraft survey, nginx is now used on 842,206 domains, making it the 6th most popular web server"

I see the same errors when one of my affiliate partners goes down. I get "502 Bad Gateway nginx/0.5.30"

[bcc1234]

fredw and wyweb, thanks guys. That gave me some food for thought.