WordPress is the platform behind millions of websites worldwide. Around the world, the vast majority of people use it. The fact that it includes a standard WordPress dashboard makes it a global platform that anybody can utilize efficiently. Its features are simple to comprehend. Additionally, it has a variety of plugins, tools, and themes that help create stunning websites. No doubt WordPress is a powerful system with great functionalities. But sometimes, everyone experiences some technical issues. Of course, this irritates us all, especially because it takes time to fix. One of the most common WordPress errors is the White Screen of Death error.

What is a White Screen of Death Error

One of the most commonly encountered and baffling issues with WordPress is the dreaded White Screen of Death. This error just replaces your entire website with white, empty space, leaving no error warnings or other helpful information behind. Imagine when visitors come to your site looking for a solution and get a blank page. How frustrating it is for them as well as for you. I am sure this is the last thing you want to happen with your site.

So Why Does The White Screen of Death Error Occur

So now you know what this error is. But what causes this error? Because it doesn’t show any error message or any information. Also, when it just affects particular web pages, this issue becomes quite challenging to find. But don’t panic; you’ll learn about all the causes of this problem here.

The two most likely causes of this problem are plugins and themes.

Plugins Incompatibility

There are situations when a freshly installed or modified plugin conflicts with a current theme or other plugins. As a result, this WordPress error “white death of screen” occurs.

Bad themes

Similar to how plugins do, themes also contribute to the white screen of death issue.
That might happen for a variety of reasons. There are occasions when brand-new themes clash with already installed plugins, causing issues. Furthermore, themes with poor coding are regularly removed by a large WordPress update. Also, manually updating or changing themes increases the danger of adding incorrect code, which is the cause of most WSOD problems.

Code Error

Errors in the PHP code are one of the numerous reasons for this issue.

Memory Limit Exhaustion

Another reason is memory limit exhaustion. It happens when your WordPress code uses more space than the amount that is typically allotted.

These are some of the main causes of the WSOD problem that is listed above.

How to fix the White Screen of Death Error in WordPress

You now understand what the “white screen of death” error is and its causes. But of course, your main concern is how to solve it. So here are some solutions for you to resolve this issue

Check your other websites with the same hosting accounts

If you have multiple WordPress sites installed on the same hosting account, start by seeing if the issue also affects other sites.

If it is, this is a clear sign that your WordPress hosting provider has a problem. You need to contact their support for additional assistance as there can be a short-term problem impacting their service.

If, on the other hand, the problem only occurs with one site or with a particular segment of that website, you know that the fault is with that specific website.

Using WordPress Recovery Mode

WordPress might be able to detect the “white screen of death” problem if a plugin or theme is to cause it occasionally. Due to its new fatal error prevention function included in WordPress 5.2, you might not see a blank screen. An error message stating that there are technical problems with the website will be shown instead.

Your admin email account would also get an email with the subject “Your Site is Having a Technical Issue.”‘

This email message will specify the faulty plugin and include a unique Link. You can log in to WordPress recovery mode using this link and disable the problematic plugin.

On the other hand, you must manually correct the problem if you are experiencing the white screen of death without any email or recovery mode options.

Expanding the Memory Space

This error typically occurs when a script runs out of memory and terminates prematurely. You must give WordPress more PHP memory in order to resolve this. This will enable the script to use additional memory to complete the task at hand.

Deactivate All Plugins

If expanding the memory limit does not resolve the issue, or if your memory limit is large (256M or 512M), you must begin debugging.

In our experience diagnosing this problem, we have consistently discovered that the problem is either with a certain plugin or a theme. Let’s start by turning off all the plugins.

Visiting the Plugins > Installed Plugins page is all you need to do if you can still get into the WordPress admin panel. Choose “Deactivate” from the “Bulk Actions” drop-down menu after selecting all the installed plugins.

But if you can’t access the WordPress admin panel then you have to disable all plugins using FTP.

Start by connecting to your WordPress website using an FTP client. After connecting, navigate to the wp-content folder and choose the ‘plugins’ folder

Rename the plugins folder by selecting it with the right-click menu. You can rename the folder anything you like. The FTP client now renames your plugin folder to the name you provide. So now when WordPress looks for a folder named plugins and couldn’t find it simply deactivates all the plugins.

If this resolves the problem, activate each plugin one at a time to identify the root of the problem. Once you’ve identified the plugin that’s causing the problem, you can either change it or report it to the plugin’s creators.

Change the theme to the WordPress default theme

If plugins aren’t the root of the WSOD problem then your theme is likely to be at fault. To confirm this, switch to the default theme of WordPress.

Follow these steps to change to the default theme

If you can still access your admin panel then in your dashboard go to
Appearance > Theme.
After that search for a default theme. WordPress has default themes named Twenty Nineteen, Twenty Twenty, and Twenty Twenty-One. From these themes, Twenty Twenty-One is the current default theme for WordPress.

Afterward, retest your website. If it functions, you’ll know your theme is the issue.

But if you don’t have access to your dashboard then follow the same process as you did with plugins.

Use the FTP client to access the files of your website. After that change the name wp-content/themes folder.

WordPress will then switch to the most recent default theme. In the case that you don’t already have one, download it from the WordPress Theme Directory. After downloading it upload it to your themes folder.

Check your website once again after that. If it functions, there may have been a problem or a poor update with your theme. If so, you need to contact the developer for assistance or think about switching themes.

Activate debug mode

If none of the solutions works for you then enable the debugging mode. You can observe the errors being outputted by doing this.

To activate debugging mode, open your wp-config.php file and look for this code

define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );

Replace it with true if it is false. But if you couldn’t find this code then simply add the following code:

define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true);
define( ‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true );

When you add these lines of code, a message, warning, and error will appear on the blank screen. These aid you in identifying the underlying issue.

Even if you don’t see any issues, you might need to look at the debug log. Using an FTP client, just navigate to the wp-content folder on your website. You will find a new debug.log file containing a log of all errors, notices, and warnings there. You can investigate them to find out more about the issue.

Fix Syntax Error Issue

When you mistakenly type something wrong or use the incorrect syntax when modifying the code on your WordPress website. This is another typical reason why WordPress WSoD occurs.

You should never update the code on your live site since one incorrect character might bring your entire website to a halt.

But do not worry. You can always use an FTP connection to access your website and undo any manual changes you made. When you don’t know which update led to the issue, having WordPress backups available can be really helpful.

Remember one thing if you previously activated WordPress’ debug mode. Then there might be an error message suggesting a parsing syntax issue. If so, it ought to provide the precise location of the error code. It will make it simple for you to solve the issue.

Clear WordPress Cache

A white screen of death may occasionally appear on the front end of a website even when you have permission to access the back end. This may occur as a result of a caching plugin. In this case, all you have to do is just clean your cache.

Resolve File Permission Problems

Changing the file permissions is another technique to resolve the WordPress white screen problem.

Since changing the file permissions might leave a WordPress website open to hacker attempts, we only advise expert users to utilize this approach.

A WordPress website’s files and folders each have a set of permissions. Sometimes, owing to misconfiguration, the file permission causes the White Screen of Death Error to appear. You can change file permissions manually by altering the command line, or you can have the hosting provider for the website do it for you automatically.

For WordPress File permissions you need to follow some simple rules

The default setting for the file must be 664 or 644.
The default setting for the folder must be 775 or 755.
And the default setting for the wp-config.php file must be 660, 600, or 644.

Fix Problems with Failed Auto-Updates

Updates to WordPress occasionally encounter problems, such as when the server times out. The majority of the time, this issue immediately gets fixed. But occasionally, it could result in the WordPress White Screen of Death.

Your initial step should be to check your WordPress root directory for a .maintenance file. It’s possible that the file’s name could be abbreviated.

You could try removing the file and loading your website once more.

Everything should return to normal if the upgrade was completed but WordPress was unable to delete this file on its own.

If the update was not finished, it could restart itself, in which case everything should return to normal as usual.

Boost PHP’s Text Processing Capabilities

There is one more method you can use at this time if the WSoD has not yet been fixed. Rarely, this issue could arise because the content on a page or post is very lengthy.

If so, you can consider modifying your website’s PHP text processing settings by raising the backtrack and recursion limitations.

For doing this you need to add the following code in your wp-config.php file

ini_set(‘pcre.recursion_limit’,20000000);
ini_set(‘pcre.backtrack_limit’,10000000);

Save your edits after adding this code. Refresh your website to check whether it is now active or not.

At last, it may be extremely upsetting and even terrifying when WordPress displays the White Screen of Death. There are many things that may go wrong, but fortunately, things typically don’t turn out as badly as they look.

In most situations, a straightforward plugin and/or theme check will resolve the WSoD issue. Furthermore, learning more about WordPress debug mode can help you better understand the issue and receive guidance.