Troubleshooting: SoftException in Application.cpp:544

I recently moved all of my sites to a new dedicated web server. In the move my webhost helped me mirror my old applications and tilt them up on the new server. This is where my problems started, several of my applications just wouldnt run, they would throw out “500 errors”.

Checking my logs, the errors looked like this:

[Tue Dec 30 09:20:18 2008] [error] [client ip.address.here] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory “/home/username/public_html/someDirectory” is writeable by group

I searched the error on google like any good geek would

I found several posts about the problem, but it all pointed down to the way that apache was configured on my new server.

I came across this post, and it really shed light on the subject for me:

“The specified directory name has been made writable by group. That suggests that your server’s apache configuration doesn’t allow you to make directories writable by group.”

In english, you’ve got the wrong permissions set on one or more folders.

I checked the directory location from the 500 error, and I saw that it’s permissions were 777, world writable. I changed the directories permissions to 755, and Apache was happy again and let the code run.

Simple as that. My new Apache install won’t run code that is in a public folder. This is a good thing for sure. If you are having issues like I was, check your permissions, and be careful what is 777!