HTTP response status codes

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) response status codes indicate whether a
specific request succeeded or failed. This article describes
some common HTTP error codes and what they mean.

Types of errors

If you can't view your website, you should pay attention to the
errors (or lack of errors) that you receive. Responses are grouped in the following classes:

The next section covers the following common codes:

• 401 Unauthorized
• 403 Forbidden
• 404 Not Found
• 500 Internal Server Error
• 502 Bad Gateway
• 503 Service Unavailable

401 unauthorized and 403 forbidden

With the 401 error, you are usually provided with a prompt to enter credentials. If
you refuse to enter the credentials or enter credentials that are incorrect, you
get this error. On the other hand, the 403 error does not prompt
for credentials and delivers the error immediately. This usually means the
URL is private or accessible only to selected IP addresses.

404 not found

The error code appears when your browser cannot find the specific URL you
entered. Most commonly, the content was moved or deleted.

500 internal server error

The error means that there is a server-side problem. Many reasons can cause this
from Apache® or Nginx® crashing to the entire server being down.

502 bad gateway

A 502 error is similar to the 500 error. However, this error means that the host server
might be running fine while another server that is being used as a proxy cannot
complete the request to the host, thus generating the error.

503 service unavailable

Common causes are a server that is down for maintenance or overloaded.