How to get rid of an HTTP 500.19 – Internal Server Error message in a SharePoint 2010 Server

Even when I’m performing the most common and simple of tasks, sometimes I still manage to mess things up and get an error message I’ve never seen before.

This time the error occurred after I installed Office Web Apps on my SharePoint Server 2010. When the installation ended, I received a message saying I must run the SharePoint Products Wizard. So I did.

After the SharePoint configuration wizard finished running, I tried to access the site collection I had created, and was surprised to see the following error message:

“HTTP Error 500.19 – Internal Server Error

The requested page cannot be accessed because the related configuration data for the page is invalid.”

The strange thing was that I could still access the Central Administration:

Other details on the error screen:

Config Error

Config section ‘system.webServer/staticContent’ already defined. Sections must only appear once per config file. See the help topic <location> for exceptions

I decided to check to see what was going on in my web.config file. I backed it up before making any changes.

Then, I traced the” <staticContent /> “line and erased it from the web.config.

Simple as that – the error message was gone and my sites started working again.

Hope this helps!