How to Fix WordPress White Screen of Death

When one morning you wake up and browse your site, you get a white screen of death. This means something went wrong with your WordPress website. This blank page makes your WordPress site inaccessible for both visitors and admin. In this tutorial, I'm going to share how to fix WordPress white screen of death easily.

WordPress White Screen of Death

WordPress White Screen of Death is a common error and there are many Pro bloggers who have experienced this White Screen of Death error.

This error appears in the Mozilla Browser with the
full white blank page, while in Chrome it appears with This page isn’t working.

The cause of white screen is PHP code errors and memory limit exhaustion. Also, this could be due to a plugin or theme that is not working properly. This error can be caused by anything. Here I'll show you a few possible solutions that help to fix WordPress White Screen of Death.

How to Fix WordPress White Screen of Death

If you are looking WordPress blank page error or This page isn’t working error, here are some common steps to resolve the issue. But before making any changes to your site, make a complete backup of your WordPress site.

1. Disable Plugins and Themes
   
2. Resolve Syntax Errors
   
3. Switch on Debugging
   
4. Increasing Memory Limits
   
5. Check for Failed Auto-Update
   
6. Recreate .htaccess file
   
7. Clear Your Website’s Cache
   
8. File permission issues

1. Disable Plugins and Themes

This is the easiest and best trick to fix WordPress White Screen of Death. Just log in to your WordPress site and disable all plugins. There are many such bad plugins that make your site inaccessible. After deactivating the plugin, your site gets cured, congratulations.

If you can’t access your WordPress admin dashboard, first log in to your web hosting’s cPanel and go to the root directory. Here click on “wp-content" then rename the plugins folder. For example plugins_OLD. As you can see in the screenshot,

Now all the plugins will be deactivated from your site. Check your site. If your site now opens, go to web hosting cPanel and rename the “plugins_OLD” folder again in the plugins. Then activate plugins one by one by going to your WordPress dashboard.

The same method applies for disabling WordPress theme. Log in to your WordPress site and replace your theme with default WordPress theme for temporarily by going to Appearance menu. Twenty Nineteen is a good choice.

But if you can’t access your WordPress dashboard, log in to your web hosting’s cPanel and go to the root directory then click on “wp-content". Here rename theme folder with theme_OLD. Now, Your WordPress site will return to the latest default theme.

Check your site. If it works, this problem was due to your theme. Now, login to cPanel and revert the renamed theme_old folder again in the theme. Don't forget to delete your old theme file.

If your site still has white screen or This page isn’t working error, follow next step.

2. Resolve Syntax Errors

This is also a common mistake. If you were editing a piece of code on your WordPress site and you accidentally typed something incorrectly that might cause the WordPress blank page.

But do not worry, connect your site by FTP client and revert your changes. If you can not figure out what changes have caused this WordPress White Screen of Death, then you can restore your site by the backup.

3. Switch on Debugging

You can also use the WordPress debug function to see what reason for WordPress blank page. To enable debugging, replace the following code in your wp-config.php file

define( 'WP_DEBUG', false )

to

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

Here, replace false with true and reload your site. WordPress will automatically start displaying errors. If this method is also unable to fix the white screen, then go to the next step.

4. Increasing Memory Limits

Generally, this problem is also due to exhausted memory. You’ll need more memory. For this, edit the wp-config.php file in the root folder of the site. Add the following code snippet to the file just before the line ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

You can now visit your WordPress site. If your site pops back up the issue was due to memory.

5. Check for Failed Auto-Update

Sometimes it is also due to updates like server timing out. Although it automatically gets cured, but some cases it arises white screen of death issue.

Just go to your WordPress root directory and if there is a .maintenance file. Delete that file and reload your site again.

6. Recreate .htaccess file

The .htaccess file exists in the root folder of the WordPress site. If you configure it and make a small mistake, your site will break.

To create it again, login to your web hosting’s cPanal and click on the file manager. After that go to the root directory and search for the .htaccess file, and rename it anything like “.htaccess old file”.

Now log in to your WordPress site and go to Settings >> Permalinks and click on save changes button without making any changes. WordPress will automatically create a .htaccess file for your site.

7. Clear Your Website’s Cache

Cache is used to improve website loading speed. Every WordPress users use WordPress caching plugins to boost page loading speed. Sometimes, caching arises errors if the stored files become outdated. Here is a tutorial How to remove cache from your WordPress site?

8. File permission issues

File permission issues also cause White Screen of Death on your WordPress site. You can fix this problem yourself or consult with a WP Expert against it, There are three simple rules for WordPress,

• Files should be 664 or 644,
• Folders should be 775 or 755
• wp-config.php file should be 660, 600, or 644

If you have SSH access to your server you can apply all of these three rules using the following commands,

sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} +
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} +
sudo chmod 660 wp-config.php

Furthermore, if you run multiple sites on the same hosting, then check first this WordPress White Screen of Death is being appeared on only one site. If this problem is on all sites, it indicates that there are some problems with your web hosting provider.

Final Thoughts

These are some steps that help to fix WordPress White Screen of Death. If this white screen issue is still in your site, you can contact your hosting provider or hire a developer.

Mostly, this error occurs by a theme or plugin issue. Also, you can detect the problem by enabling debugging.

Have any thoughts regarding WordPress White Screen of Death? We’d love to hear what you think about it.

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