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I have been working with WordPress since 2009. When WordPress was a very young content manager, almost in its infancy, and there weren’t as many resources as there are now.
One of my biggest fears during my WordPress learning epic has always been the “to break something and don’t know how to fix it“.
This feeling is exponential when one day you go to visit your website, and suddenly nothing works, everything is blank (in case you haven’t been insightful, that’s where the the screen on white).
In the Anglo-Saxon world, it is called WSoD (White Screen of Deaththe white screen of death).
That’s right! When this blank screen appears, it is like an absolute vacuum, where nothing is happening.
This blank screen causes cold sweats, and you don’t even know where to start to fix the problem. You feel as if you woke up in the middle of a desert, and you don’t know where you have to go.
Fortunately, in this article I will explain how to solve this blank screen on your website made with WordPress, and take away your fear once and for all when you see it.
To do this, first we are going to see the most common reasons why the blank screen appears, and then I will explain how to solve it.
You will find a small video tutorial at the end of the article where I summarize the solutions described in this article.
Reasons why we can have a blank screen
As I mentioned earlier in the article, the blank screen is a (server error).
There is a big differenceyes indeed, from WordPress version 5.2. You may now no longer see the blank screen, but instead a “This site is experiencing technical difficulties” message.
Once you have this in mind, I will now mention what are some of the reasons why you may see a blank screen (or the technical difficulties message):
- A plugin that is not compatible with the version of your WordPress
- A plugin that is not supported with another plugin
- An error in some file in the code of a plugin or template
- A code error in your file wp-config.php
- A code error in your child theme file functions.php
But if this sounds like Chinese to you, don’t worry: I’ll summarize it for you in two large groups of possible errors:
Plugin or template incompatibility
The incompatibility of a plugin or a template can be due to many factors.
The most common is that as WordPress is updated to new versions, there are some plugins that are forgotten by their authors, and they stop updatingthus causing an incompatibility with the core of the latest versions of WordPress.
This is very common when you buy a template in what I call a template “flea market”, such as Themeforest, and you get an author who built the template you buy with the best intentions (including earning money) and you get it. he sold, but then he put it aside because he got a better job and decided not to continue updating it.
It is at that unwanted moment when you have to decide between changing the template (the most frequent) or sticking with the one you are using, keeping your fingers crossed that it continues to work well for you.
If what you think is incompatible is a plugin, change themeforest by Codecanyon (both are from the same company), and the same thing happens with the code of the plugin that you have purchased.
corrupt files
Although the base will always be the same (something that is not compatible), in this case I am referring more to a line of code which is missing a comma, or something similar.
This will generate that when the server you use starts reading all the files that it has to show to the visitor, it will go to the head when it reads the badly written file and does not know what to show, thus causing the famous blank screen.
For this reason, the correct thing to do in this case is simply to find where the error is in all the files on your website, and correct it.
And how to do this among the hundreds of files in WordPress? I tell you in the next section.
After reading all of the above, I can confirm what I always defend cloak sword: since prevention is better than cure, I always recommend using professional templates and pluginsusually paid annually, which ensure constant support and frequent updates.
How to fix blank screen
We now turn to the most practical part of the article. We’ll see four ways to find a solution to that dreaded WordPress blank screen.
- Maybe it’s because of the plugin active
- Maybe it’s because of the template
- Maybe it’s the core from wordpress
- Maybe it’s something else we can find by debugging
As you can see, I write the word perhaps on purpose, since in theory, it is difficult to know right away what is happening on your websiteand it is necessary to rule out possibilities.
They are not in any particular order, you can start with the one that annoys you the most, or better yet, start with the one that your wordpresian sense tells you (although I recommend you follow the order I mention).
Of course, I recommend you to have FTP access or access to your file manager in WePaneland first of all, make a backup of your website.
I show you all these solutions in a video-summary at the end of the article, but then you have them detailed in writing as well.
Test with active plugins
The possible solution proposed here is to do something very common in WordPress to see where the problem is: disable all plugins, and activate them one by oneuntil you find the one that gives the error.
Simply go to the plugins folder of your WordPress installation, and disable all of them, putting a “_” before the name, or at the end.
In case you don’t know, the path of the plugins folder in WordPress is:
wp-content/plugins/
In this way WordPress will consider that they are not active, and you will be able to test them one by one.
Review the template being used
In this other possible solution, you can do something similar: deactivate the theme you are using, and re-activate the one that came by default in WordPress.
To do this you have to do the same as in the previous step, but with the folder that contains your template or child theme, and be sure that there is a folder with a default template the ones that come with WordPress when you first install it.
Check if the WordPress memory is configured correctly
This other solution is less used, since it is not so common, but if the previous two do not work, you can try it perfectly.
Is about “increase” the memory that WordPress uses on your server, and for this you simply have to add this line of code to your file wp-config.phpin the main folder of your WordPress installation:
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘128M’);
In any case, if you have reached this situation, I recommend that you contact the support team of your server, because the problem may be more technical than you think.
use mode debugging from wordpress
I have left for the end a very simple method to do, and that is deactivated by default (even hidden) in WordPress, and that not many people know: do debugging.
I recommend reading an extensive article about it, written by me, about the . There you will see everything in great detail, although I will briefly summarize it here.
To activate bug mode, copy this code to the file wp-config.php also.
define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true); define(‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true); define(‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, true);
With this code, you will activate the version for “see errors on screen“, and then you will know exactly where the problem is and what is wrong.
If you don’t see anything on the screen yet, you can check the file log which is in the folder wp-content.
In this video I am going to give you an example with the four possible solutions, so that you have it clearer.
Conclusions
As you can see, the fear of the blank screen is part of the past.
You are now ready to face one of the worst things that can happen to you on a WordPress website, and I have given you all the tools to fix it.
Remember that you must always use plugins and templates made by professionals, which have continuous support, precisely so that this type of scenario does not occur.
I encourage you to investigate further what is mentioned in this article, and always do it in a test environment, and never do anything on a production website.
I hope you found this article interesting and that it helped you!
I say goodbye and see you in the next article!
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Online Marketing and WordPress Consultant with more than 8 years of experience. I create websites with a user experience focused on specific objectives (increase visibility, increase customers, etc.) and I support my clients with their social media strategies and online marketing campaigns.
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