500 error with AJAX POST

Hello,

Has anyone had any experience with 500 errors from a server when using AJAX?

Here is my JavaScript:

var specify = function(names){
    $.ajax({
        url: 'controller/action',
        type: 'POST',
        async: false,
        cache: false,
        data: {name:names},
        success: function(response){
            jsondata = JSON.parse(response);        
        }
    });
    return jsondata;
}

When this function is called, the server responds with:

POST https://example.net/controller/action 500 (Internal Server Error) or Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error).

Does anyone have any ideas why this might be?

This works just fine when I'm using XAMPP on windows without an ssl. When I move it over to my Linux server, it fails everytime. Maybe it has something to do with the ssl certificate on my Linux server?

Thanks