WordPress White Screen of Death (WSOD) is a common yet troublesome problem for many WordPress users. This problem occurs when there is an error in your website that causes the page to turn completely white and show no error messages, making diagnosis and resolution complicated. Fortunately, there are several effective methods to identify and solve this problem. In this article, we will discuss a roadmap to help you fix the White Screen of Death in WordPress.

Disable All Plugins

Plugins are often the cause of WordPress white screen of death, A conflict between plugins or an error in a specific plugin can crash the entire site. Follow these steps to disable all plugins:

1. Via WordPress Dashboard: If you still have access to your WP admin, go to ‘Plugins’ and deactivate all plugins by selecting them and choosing ‘Deactivate’.
2. Via FTP or File Manager: If you don’t have access to your dashboard, use FTP (e.g. Filezilla ) or the File Manager in your hosting account:
   • Navigate to the wp-content folder.
   • Rename the plugins folder to something else, such as plugins_off.
   • This deactivates all plugins. Check if this solves the problem.

If the problem is solved by disabling the plugins you now also need to find out which pugin it is, you can do that to disable the plugging 1 by 1,

Temporarily Disable Your Theme

A corrupted theme can also cause the WordPress white screen of death. To test this:

1. Via WordPress Dashboard: Go to “View” > “Themes” and activate one of the default WordPress themes.
2. Via FTP or File Manager:
   • Navigate to wp-content/themes.
   • Rename the folder of your current theme. WordPress will automatically activate one of the default themes.

After deactivating your theme, check if your website is working again.

Increase the Memory Limit

An insufficient memory limit can also lead to the WSOD. Increase your PHP memory limit by following these steps:

1. Edit the wp-config.php file, located in the root directory of your WordPress installation.
2. Add this line above the line /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */: define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’); This increases PHP’s memory limit for your WordPress site.

Enable Debugging in WordPress

If none of the above steps work, you can enable debugging in WordPress to find the cause of the problem:

1. Open the wp-config.php file.
2. Look for the line define(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);. Replace false with true.
3. Add these lines if they do not already exist: define(‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true); and define(‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, false);

Check the Server Log Files

If you still haven’t found a solution, check your server’s error log files. These logs can offer insight into what may be going wrong on the server that is affecting your WordPress site.

With these steps you should be able to solve the WordPress white screen of death, can’t figure it out or still have questions? Then please contact us .