Why am I getting 500 or 406 or 404 or 403 errors during product updates?
Symptom:
When updating product details (or EZ-Pages content and other areas), when certain keywords are used in the content, an error message similar to the following may appear:
Forbidden - You don't have permission to access /admin/product.php on this server.
You also may see this message:
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Sometimes the error may appear as a 500 Internal Server Error or 406 error.
Cause:
Many servers nowadays use a tool in their Apache Webserver software configuration called “mod_security” in order to prevent against hack attempts on the server. This tool monitors the content of words/data submitted in forms on web pages, and if certain keywords are found, it flags the entire form-submission as at-risk, and prevents the entered data from being saved.
Common keywords which may get flagged include: INSERT or UPDATE and other commonly-used SQL commands.
The numbers 500, 406, 404 or 403 are the HTTP response code.
Possible Solutions:
-
Don’t use any words which are restricted by your host’s rules.
-
Get your host to change or relax the mod_security rules.
-
You can try disabling mod_security for your admin area by putting this in your
/admin/.htaccessfile:
SecFilterInheritance Off
or this:
SecFilterScanPOST Off
If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to talk to your hosting company for specific assistance about ways in which they will allow you to override mod_security filters in your admin area.