magento 1.9 500 error --> doesn't save product edits & redirects to dashboard

[m52go]

Hi, I'm a developer but not a Magento expert so please excuse me but I'm really not sure what to do. Been digging around the code, server, and browser and can't figure out what's going on.

Browser throws this error when trying to save product edits. It's a 500 error...seems like the server doesn't like something about the POST request:

Going straight to the POST URL in the browser also returns a 500 error but then of course I see corresponding errors in logs for blank fields.

Apparently this happened out of the blue. I already tried clearing & flushing cache.

I don't see any errors in either exception.log or system.log.

Any idea how I can see more information about what's going on?

The routes/controllers don't seem to follow Magento conventions so I can't find where the heck this POST request is being handled on the server side.

[Tom Robertshaw]

Hi, the PHP function that this ajax request is posting to is this one https://github.com/OpenMage/magento-mirror/blob/magento-1.9/app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/controllers...

In terms of debugging this problem, the error is mostly likely shown in the php/webserver logs rather than the Magento one because 500 is a critical one. What webserver/php configuration do you use? Do you know where to check its logs?

[m52go]

Thanks Tom. After 2 days of scrambling to understand what was happening I just figured it out. Simple as it may be, your suggestion to check ProductController was CRUCIAL.

The error was there...some custom validation criteria there was failing (although oddly, the exception wasn't caught by the 3 try/catch blocks there) and causing the whole edit operation to throw the 500. 

Thank you again!

[Tom Robertshaw]

No worries, glad it was helpful