How to Quickly Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death

Imagine building your business site, and your site gets whitewashed on the day of your first sale? To be whitewashed, I mean get the White Screen of Death. This is horrifying as in Mozilla Firefox, and it doesn’t even show any error. Well, relax, we have a solution to this, and that is pretty quick too.

But before you solve the issue, you should know why this white page error occurs in the first place. Most of the time, it is produced by the memory limit exhaustion or the PHP code error. Below are the in-depth details of the WordPress white screen error.

What is the WordPress White Screen of Death?

WSOD is an error caused in WordPress that makes the screen white, and the site fails to load, and this happens due to PHP code error or memory limit exhaustion of your site hosting. But there can be another problem with your WordPress site too. Look, if the admin side of your website is working fine, then the problem is with some plugin or theme. Because White page error, when happens, affects both admin and user sides of your WordPress site.

Being said that, you may get confused, but you don’t have to. You may see White screen errors in the following type of screens in the different browsers.

In Google Chrome, it is shown as the HTTP 500 error.

Google Chrome
Google Chrome

In Mozilla FireFox,

Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox

This is so white in the firefox, Isn’t it? Let’s find out why it is so white.

Quick Fix for WordPress White Screen of Death

To quickly fix this issue, you can apply the following methods one by one.

Quick Fix - White Screen of Death
Quick Fix – White Screen of Death

Note: the following methods are listed in the priority order, so apply them one after the other.

1. Disable the Plugins to Solve White Screen Error

You may now get offended as in almost every WordPress related issue, the first solution prescribed by the techy guy is disabling the plugins and themes. Well, your frustration is valid; this is a truth that faulty themes or plugins cause most of the issues. And in this case, if plugins are not responsible, then the error is probably caused by problems in hosting.

Now you have to disable the plugins. Don’t do it one by one. If you can log in to the Admin dashboard, then just go to dashboard settings and disable all the plugins. To do that,

  • Go to plugins and select all the plugins.

    Disable Plugins
    Disable Plugins
  • Now click on Bulk Actions and select Delete. Click on apply.

    Delete Plugins
    Delete Plugins

But if you are not authorized to login to the admin dashboard, then you have to access your FTP server, or you can directly access your cPanel. After that, go to the File manager and using FTP, you can directly access the Plugins folder, rename that folder to anything else.

This will deactivate all your plugins. Now revive your website and see if the white page error is gone. If not, then jump to the next solution.

2. Remove the Themes

It may seem new to you, but themes can also be faulty as they are made up of codes. Most of the time, flawed themes are nulled or pirated versions of the original themes. So, if you have done that, go to the settings of the theme of your WordPress site if you can log in to the admin panel. Disable the current theme, and apply the WordPress default Twenty Nineteen theme.

But if you are unable to login to the admin panel, then you can use the same method that we used in the case of plugins.

  • Access the Cpanel or your FTP server and
  • Rename the Themes folder.

    Rename Theme
    Rename Theme
  • Refresh the site and see if it is working or not.

If not working, just jump toward the next section.

3. Resolve PHP Code Errors

If you were editing your website code right before this WordPress white screen error, then you have to do nothing but correct that code error. A single error in your code can take down your website.

But how can you get to know the cause of the error? Well, most of the time, you can get to know about the error in a file name error in the server. In that file, the error is shown, and the line at which error is happening. You can consult that to remove the PHP code error.

Refresh the site and see if the white screen error is gone.

You can also use the Backups to restore the old code. Always make regular backups; this is really essential for the security of your website. If you can’t take daily backups, let us do that for you. Please contact the WP inCare support team to get the best deal.

4. Turn Debugging Mode On

WordPress Debug Mode On
WordPress Debug Mode On

If the white page error is not resolved, even after the above three methods, then your site may need to be debugged. Now the good news is that WordPress has its debugging system, and the bad news is that you should have some developmental knowledge to initiate this process. Let’s get started.

  • First of all, open the wp-config file from your hosting server.
  • Find the following line in the code of wp-config.
    define( 'WP_DEBUG', false )
  • To initiate the debugging process, you just have to replace the false with true and then refresh the site.
Debug Mode Via Code
Debug Mode Via Code

By doing this, you will see an extended error code that will explain to you which plugin is causing the issue. This line is also like the error code, as shown in the above method.

Cannot redeclareget_posts() (previously declared in /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-includes/post.php:1874) in /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/my-test-plugin/my-test-plugin.php on line 24

Now you can edit the code by yourself, or you can just delete the plugin using FTP server. If you edit the code by yourself, please make sure that you have an old backup.

Remember that if you edit the code by yourself, then you can make more mess out of it, so please do remember that.

5. Increase Your PHP Memory Limit

WordPress white screen error can also be caused because of the limit of the PHP memory. This also happens because of any faulty or third-party plugin. That broken plugin uses a lot of PHP memory, thus on reaching the maximum limit assigned by your hosting provider, an internal server error occurred. Most probably in the shared hosting where they provide a minimal PHP memory.

Now you may be thinking of purchasing a dedicated hosting or any trick to increase the assigned PHP limit. But this is not the solution. It may be a temporary solution, but for a permanent solution, you have to look for the origin cause of this white screen error.

Here are the steps to follow to increase the PHP limit.

  • Get access to the File manager of your service hosting.
  • In the public.html folder, look for the wp-config.php and download that.
  • Now open the wp-config.php file using the best HTML editor or any Text editor.
  • Now add the following code after the PHP open tag <?PHP.
  • define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');
  • You can also increase the PHP memory thrushold by creating a blank text file and name it php.ini.
  • Now add the following code in that empty file.
    memory=64MB
  • Now save the file and upload it in/wp-admin/.

This will increase the PHP memory limit for the time being a solution. But this is not a permanent solution. You still have to find a permanent solution.

6. Checking the File Permission Issues

If you upload the files directly to your hosting, then there is a chance that you have messed up with your file permission settings, thus cause WordPress white screen error. Fortunately, it is not that difficult to check and modify these settings from the cPanel.

First of all, get your hand on your hosting and then open the folder containing your website files. Most of the cPanels show the permissions with the data, but you can also check by right-clicking and later viewing the properties.

  • Set the permissions from 755 or 644.
  • The permission for the wp-config file should be 660, 600, 644.

7. See If the WordPress is Failed to Update

Sometimes, during the auto-update of the WordPress site, time out error, or any server error occurs like memory limit exhausted, this can cause the white page error. To resolve this, do check your root folder in the hosting, and see if there is any .maintenance file is there. Delete that file and refresh the site.

This is the file that WordPress creates while updating and delete if the update becomes successful. But if, in any case, the update does not complete, this maintenance file keeps lying there and prevents the site from going live.

Frequently Asked Questions

WSOD is an error caused in WordPress that makes the screen white, and the site fails to load, and this happens due to PHP code error or memory limit exhaustion of your site hosting

Follow the simple steps to solve the WordPress white screen of Death.

  1. Disable Plugins.
  2. Remove themes.
  3. Check for PHP code errors
  4. Switch in debugging mode.
  5. Increase Memory limits.
  6. Check for file permissions issue.
  7. Check for WordPress update issue

Summary

We hope this guide has helped you resolve the WordPress white screen error. Most of the time, increasing the PHP limit and debugging the code solves the issue.

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