I’ve been asked to help with a site running ExpressionEngine 1.7.3, the site owner recently started encountering problems when trying to save one of their content entries. When pressing the “Quick Save” or “Update” button for this particular entry, they get a 500 internal server error.
This doesn’t appear to be happening when saving any other entry on the site. In case some of the data for the entry was causing a problem, I also went back and created a new entry to see if I could narrow it down. I had a bit of luck with that, but still didn’t find any real rhyme or reason to the problem - the channel contains a body field and if that field has more than 67 lines of text AND the text past line 67 contains a named anchor (<a name=”“>), then the error occurs. Otherwise, I can save the entry without a problem.
It’s probably also worth noting that the same error occurs if I try to save the same content using a template.
As best I can determine, it appears to be a server-related issue - though when I contact the hosting provider (dotCanada.com), they of course tell me that it must be a software issue (more on that below). I have tested by copying the site (the files & database contents) to 4 other servers and the problem does not occur with any of them.
Any ideas what the problem might be, or suggestions for troubleshooting it?
(As a quick aside, the dotCanada.com support staff haven’t been much help so far. They’re insisting that it’s a problem with ExpressionEngine, even though I’ve provided them with verifiable proof that the issue does not occur on 4 other servers.)