WordPress white screen of death is one of the most common errors WordPress users may encounter. This problem “WordPress white screen” mostly occurs after migration for others after installing a new plugin or a theme that’s incompatible with another plugin or the WordPress core files. Well if you are seeing a blank page on your web browser while visiting your WP website with no errors or information, this is the symptom of WSDE. Here we have solutions to fix the white screen of death on WordPress sites.
What causes the white screen of death?
WordPress white screen of death error mostly occurs by either PHP errors or database errors. For example, if you have installed an outdated plugin that hasn’t been updated a while it might cause an issue hence the plugin code isn’t compatible with the code being used by newer versions of WordPress. And the same things happen with outdated themes that have not been updated for a while. That’s why we always recommend buying themes that are regularly updated.
How to fix the white screen of death in WordPress?
Well if you are also struggling with Similar problem, here apply the solutions below to fix the WordPress white screen of death error.
Note: following methods instruct to make changes to your website core files. We recommend that you backup your website before going through any of the steps below. Well if you don’t have access to your website back-end at the moment, contact your web host and check to see if they have recent backups of your website on the server.
Check WordPress Plugins might cause WSOD
As discussed before the Incompatible WP plugin might cause this WordPress white screen error. We recommend the first check with disabling the installed plugins that might help to detect and fix the problem.
If you are able to login to the admin dashboard of your website.
- Move to the plugins section
- check mark all plugins and deactivate them.
If the site function normally after disabling plugins, then enable the plugins one by one to detect which one causes the error.
Well If you don’t have access to the WordPress admin area, then you need to login to Cpanel or FTP to reset all installed plugins on your WordPress site.
Install FTP client like FileZilla,
- Login in to your server using the credentials provided by your web host
- Navigate to the directory where your WordPress files are located.
- Open
wp-contentthe folder then locate thepluginsfolder. - This is where all your plugins are stored.
- Simply rename this folder to something else like plugins.old
- This will deactivate all of the plugins installed on your website and reset your site to the default state.
Return to your browser and refresh your website. The white screen of death should be gone and you should be able to log in to WordPress.
Switch to the Default WP theme
If disabling WP plugins didn’t help to fix the problem, then might be the theme core files conflict with an existing plugin. Let’s check with disable the newly activated theme and revert to its default theme.
- It’s simple and easy, just Login to your Admin dashboard,
- Go to Appearance >> Themes
- Here activate the default WordPress theme.
Again If you don’t have access to the admin area,
- login to the server via FTP
- Go to the WP-Content folder.
- Here you’ll find a sub-folder named Themes.
- Look for the directory that shares a name with your active theme.
- Make a copy of that theme and then delete the original folder.
- This will revert your website theme to the default WordPress theme.
- Now try to access your WordPress site, If no problem there then the theme causing the error.
- Check with the theme provider to resolve the issue or switch to a different theme.
Increasing the Memory Limit
Sometimes this error may cause if there is not enough memory to run your website. Especially if your site has too many plugins and gets lots of traffic, the default defined memory limits may not be enough to handle all the website instances at once. And that causes increasing the memory limits of your website probably help to fix the problem.
To do this you need to edit the wp-config.php file on your WordPress site.
- Go to your WordPress root folder
- Locate your wp-config.php file
- Right-click on it, and choose the Edit option,
- Scroll to the bottom of the file and look for the line reading That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.
- At this point, you’ll need to paste the following line of code right above that message:
define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ );
Also, you can add this code php_value memory_limit 64M to your .htaccess file to see if it fixes the error as well.
Use the WordPress Debug Mode
You are reading this means still didn’t find the solution for WordPress White Screen of Death. Well, It’s time to introduce you the WordPress debug mode, which troubleshoots errors more efficiently.
- Go to your WordPress root folder
- Locate your wp-config.php file
- Right-click on it, and choose the Edit option,
- Scroll to the bottom of the file and look for the line reading That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.
- At this point, you’ll need to paste the following line of code right above that message:
define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );
- When you save the file, the debug mode will be activated.
- This will generate a file called debug.log in the /wp-content/ directory.
- This file can be opened and read using most standard text editors, such as TextEdit or Notepad.
You could also choose to display the error messages directly on the page. To do this, add the following code to wp-config.php:
define( ‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, true );
When you have finished using the debug mode, it’s important that you remember to disable it. And to do this open the wp-config.php file, and change the WP_DEBUG line back to false.
Check Your Caching Solution
Implementing a caching solution in WordPress is an excellent way of speeding up your site. However, because it saves old versions of files, there’s a risk that outdated content can cause problems.
This can be fixed by purging the cache, which will clear all that unnecessary stored data from your site. When you’ve done that, check your site again to see if you’ve fixed the problem. If so, you may want to contact the developers behind your caching solution to find out why the WSOD is happening, or get in touch with your host’s support team.
If still the problem is not solved, In such cases, it’s worth reaching out to your web host support team and asking for their help.