Reliable methods to fix the White Screen of Death (WsoD) in WordPress

Most developers will be familiar with it: the White Screen of Death (WsoD). This error is one of the most common when working with WordPress and can be frustrating. Especially when you don’t have a solution at hand.

In some cases, the WsoD even prevents you from logging into the admin area. Especially for users without a technical background, the panic is then great.

But don’t worry – there are a variety of approaches to get a handle on the White Screen of Death. Some of them can be implemented even without extensive technical knowledge.

What is the WordPress White Screen of Death? #

The White Screen of Death occurs when WordPress can no longer execute its routines cleanly or an external conflict (e.g. plugins) is faulty and prevents WordPress from running.

In most cases, this is the cause:

• Plugins. Sometimes they are poorly programmed, other times they are not provided with the necessary updates. Plugins are one of the most common causes of the White Screen of Death.
• Themes. The theme you are using may no longer be compatible with the current version of WordPress.
• Insufficient memory. WordPress needs memory to execute its scripts. If this is full, the routines abort.
• Corrupted files. This case is rare, but can happen. Especially when core files like functions.php or wp-config.php are affected.

How to fix WordPress White Screen of Death #

As mentioned before: there are several ways and means to repair the WsoD. In the following guide, we will go through the steps by probability in which they can solve your problem. With a little luck, you can stop after the first step.

But enough of the preface – let’s get into the doing.

Disable plugins #

Hardly any WordPress installation can do without plugins. They enrich our platforms and add great features to the CMS.

But sometimes they are also the cause of errors. This happens when there is faulty code in the plugins or a plugin has not been adapted to the new features after a WordPress update.

To rule out the cause of White Screen of Death by using a plugin, you should perform the following steps.

1. Log in to the admin area of WordPress and click on the Plugins tab in the left menu. Once there, check the box for the installed plugins and select Disable in the tab at the top. This should disable all plugins. Now go into the browser and reload your page. With luck, the WsoD has already taken care of itself. If that’s the case, your problem had to do with one of the installed plugins. Now activate one plugin after the other and check after each activation if the page still works. This will help you track down the culprit.
2. If the White Screen of Death prevents you from logging into the admin area, don’t despair. Log into your web hoster‘s account and go to the FTP section there. Then go to your WordPress directory, open the wp-content folder. Rename the plugin folder by putting a -old or -backup behind it. After that you can reload your page and see if the problem is solved. If so, you can rename the plugin folder again, double-click on it and then rename each of the installed plugins briefly with -old or -backup until you find the plugin that caused the problem.

Fix your long blog articles or pages #

It seems strange, but long articles, posts or pages can be a precursor to White Screen of Death. Therefore, correcting these long posts, articles and/or pages may help fix your WordPress website.

This trick basically optimizes PHP’s text processing capability by extending the limits for recursion and backtrack.

Just add the code below to your wp-config.php to fix the blank white screen and restart the browser.

Again, the first thing to do is to look for the following line:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Then, below that, add the following two commands:

ini_set( 'pcre.recursion_limit', 20000000 );
ini_set( 'pcre.backtrack_limit', 10000000 );

Activate default theme #

Most users use a theme for WordPress, because they cannot map the necessary functions for their website with a standard theme.

If you use a premium theme, in most cases it is regularly updated and thus adapted to innovations in WordPress.

To see if the White Screen of Death is related to the theme, you should disable it and switch to a default theme.

To do so, log into the admin area of WordPress and click on Design on the left side and then on Themes. You will get an overview of the installed themes. You can recognize the active theme by the check mark. Now select a default theme and reload your site.

Tip: You can recognize a WordPress default theme by its name. WordPress releases a new default theme every year, which also carries the name of the year. The current one is Twenty Twenty-Two.

If you don’t have a default theme installed, you can install it in the backend under Themes. It takes only a few seconds.

Most likely, after activating the default theme, your page will not look aesthetically pleasing because the elements of your page have not been optimized for the theme. But it’s not about whether your page looks nice, it’s about whether it displays at all.

If it is displayed, the WSoD is due to the theme you are using. If it is, check your theme for updates.

In case your theme does not provide an update, you will unfortunately have to part with it. Alternatively, you can backup to a date before the last WordPress update.

However, we would like to advise you against this in the long run, because you will not only have to do without new functions, but also accept security gaps.

Enable WordPress debug mode #

WordPress comes with an error log by default, but it is disabled by default.

If you turn it on, the system will give you all the PHP errors that prevent your system from running cleanly.

To disable the error log respectively the debug mode, you have to go back to wp-config.php.

There you search again for the line:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

And finally, underneath, paste the following code:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

If the command already exists in your config, it is most likely set to false. Then you just have to replace this value with true.

To not only activate the debug mode, but also have a log created and hide the log message from your visitors, you can also add the following line below it:

define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG' ,  true) ;
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

The log is then saved as a .txt file in the wp-content folder.

Clear Browser / WordPress Cache #

The cache is a wonderful thing, it allows us to access web pages faster. If web pages are faulty and the error was written to the cache, the page will no longer be displayed correctly. A common reason for a White Screen of Death.

How to clear the browser cache #

Anbei listen wir dir kurz auf, wie dBelow we list briefly how you can clear the cache in the most popular browsers. (Clear cache in different browsers).

Chrome

• Open Chrome.
• Click on “More” in the upper right corner.
• Click “More tools” and then “Clear browser data”.
• Select a time range at the top. To delete everything, select “Delete all”.
• Check the boxes next to “Cookies and other website data” and “Cached images and files”.
• Click on “Delete data”.

Safari

• Open Safari.
• Click “History” in the menu bar (top left of your screen).
• Select “Clear History …” at the bottom of the menu.
• You can also choose “Safari” > “Clear History …”.
• From the drop-down menu, select the period for which you want to delete Safari history and cookies.
• Click “Clear history” one last time.
• This will not only clear your Safari history, but also your cookies and cache.
• Remember that you may be logged out of websites.

Firefox

• In Firefox, click on “History” in the menu bar (top left of the screen).
• Click on “Delete recent history…”
• Change the desired time frame.
• Select the data you want to remove.
• Click on “OK”.

How to clear the cache in WordPress #

If you use a caching plugin, you have to empty it as well. Below we show you how to do this for the most common plugins.

WP Rocket

Go to WP Rocket’s settings and click the “Clear Cache” button in the plugin’s dashboard.

WP Super Cache

Go to WP Super Cache settings in your WordPress admin dashboard, then click the “Clear Cache” button in the “Clear Cached Pages” section.

W3 Total Cache

Go to Performance > Dashboard and then click the “Clear all caches” button.

Increase WordPress memory limit #

WordPress sets the memory limit to 32 MB by default.

To increase this value, you need to adjust the so-called memory limit in wp-config.php.

You can do this by logging into the FTP server on your web host’s web interface and editing wp-config.php in the main folder of your WordPress installation.

Look for the following line:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Insert the following line below it:

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M' );

In many cases, it is enough to enter 128M to increase the memory limit. If this is not the case, you can also try 256M or 512m.

How high the memory limit can be, is determined by your web host. Most providers still go with 128M.

Alternative method via the .htaccess #

If the above option does not work, then use the .htaccess by adding the following line:

php_value memory_limit 128M

You can adjust the value 128M according to the values mentioned before.

Alternative method via php.ini #

If the above option is not available, first edit your php.ini to increase the memory limit.

To do this, connect to your server via FTP, go to the root directory of your website and locate the php.ini file.

After you have found it, paste this line anywhere in the file:

memory_limit = 128M

Again, the value 128M can be adjusted.

Check file permissions #

Here, you can proceed according to two methods, depending on your technical know-how.

Method 1: SFTP #

Since access to file permissions depends on how your WordPress website is designed, it would be very time-consuming to discuss every single method here. (How to use SFTP to connect to your WordPress Website)

However, the most important thing is that the WSoD error occurs when your WordPress website’s file permissions do not comply with the three basic rules mentioned below.

1. Files should be set644 to or .664
2. Folders should be set755 to or775.
3. The wp-config.php file should be set to 644660, or .600

If you reset the permissions to the default settings, you may be able to fix the White Screen of Death.

FTP clients like WinSCP and FileZilla support the editing of file permissions. To do this, you only have to select the entry Change file permissions in the context menu of the respective file (right-click on the file/folder to open it). Now you can change and manage the permissions.

Of course, this can be quite time-consuming, among other things. The whole thing is faster with the following method.

Method 2: Via SSH access #

Besides that, there is another method that we think might be a bit easier for you if you have the necessary knowledge: accessing your server via SSH.

If you apply the rule with the following commands from the WordPress root directory, you can fix the technical glitch causing WSoD:

sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} + 
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} +
sudo chmod 660 wp-config.php

Restore backup #

If all else fails, you should contact your web host. Most companies offer backups in their packages – many even on a daily basis.

Some web hosts also allow their customers to install the backup themselves via a web interface. To check this, you should take a look at the interface of your provider. Otherwise, the support is also available to help you with words and deeds.

This solution approach is certainly not the best, but it guarantees the page recovery.

Summary #

We hope that with this guide we could help you get rid of your WordPress White Screen of Death.

The error is also annoying because it doesn’t give you an error message and the problem could be anywhere. In most cases, however, the previously mentioned measures should help to solve your problem.

For you as a website owner, it’s terrible to see a blank screen instead of your content.

There are many reasons for the White Screen of Death, detecting a key problem is not a piece of cake, as should be obvious from the above.

If the error still persists and you don’t have a way to import a backup, our WordPress experts will be happy to take a look at it for you.

Contact us via our contact form, and we will get back to you in a timely manner.