A WordPress white screen of death is a frustrating experience for any website owner. But don’t worry, we’re going to show you how to fix it in this blog post! We’ll go over the basics of what causes a WordPress white screen of death and then move on to some specific solutions that have helped others get back up and running. If you’re experiencing WordPress white screen of death on your site, be sure to read through this article before moving forward with other troubleshooting steps.
Enable debugging mode
There are many reasons WordPress white screen of death can happen, but the most common is when something goes wrong with WordPress core. Other common causes include plugins and themes going bad or permissions being changed on your site’s files (especially wp-config.php). If you’re experiencing WordPress white screen of death, turn on debugging in WordPress. WordPress debugging mode can output the exact error location with a more understandable message.
Locate this line in wp-config.php and update as follows:
You should get the error message in the front-end after turning on debugging mode. Then you can take the next step accordingly.
Increase the memory limit
The majority of the time, this error happens because of exhausted the memory limit. To fix it, you need to increase the PHP memory available to WordPress. You can increase the WordPress memory limit by editing the wp-config.php file on your WordPress website. Use an FTP client or file manager in your web hosting control panel.
Add this line in wp-config.php to increase the PHP memory limit to 256MB in WordPress.
Use this code to increase the PHP memory limit to 256MB in WordPress.
Troubleshoot plugins
After increasing the memory limit, if the error persists, a buggy plugin can cause the white screen of death issue. It would be best if you tried to disable all plugins of your website and see what happens.
If you can access the admin area of your WordPress site, then you can easily disable all plugins. Otherwise, you will need to deactivate the plugins by renaming the plugin directory.
- Use an FTP client or control panel filemanager to access files.
- Go to the wp-content directory
- Now right click on the plugins folder and then select rename.
- Rename as “plugins_troubleshoot” or anything.
- Now visit the website, it should load now but without plugins
If deactivating all plugins fix the issue, identify the culprit plugin by enabling plugins one by one and test which one causes the white screen of death.
Troubleshoot theme
An outdated incompatible theme version can also cause the white screen of death error. If the problem persists after deactivated all of your website plugins, you should replace the current theme with a default theme. If the theme really causes the issue, you should be able to access the WordPress dashboard. Switch the current theme with a default WordPress theme.
If switching the theme fix the issue, make sure that the theme is up to date and compatible with the current PHP version.