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FWIW, a 500 doesn't imply the server is crashing. More likely just throwing a generic error, e.g. unexpected input –probably because it's expecting some form/data parameters– and failing the request early. It'd more correct to return a 400 in this case, but the /authorize.php endpoint may only be used by tesla.com frontend, so they don't care if it's used in unexpected ways.

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What's the distinction between the server crashing and the server throwing an error?

Usually, a server throwing an error would mean that it is aware there was an unexpected state, and is itself consciously not fulfilling the request by returning a 500 error, for example. It remains available to handle the next incoming request.

A server crashing implies that the server program or process itself has terminated, and is not able to handle further requests. This usually manifests as a 503 error by an upstream proxy server (nginx/apache/CDN/etc.).

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