I attempted to install a Mageplaza blog extension and it caused the site to hit a 500 error afterwards. I removed the extension and ran numerous commands such:
php bin/magento cache:clean
php bin/magento cache:flush
php bin/magento setup:upgrade
php bin/magento setup:di:compile
removed and readded the .htaccess file within the root directory.
nothing worked, it still shows the 500 error on both frontend and admin area.