How To Eliminate The WordPress White Screen of Death Forever

Ahh, the WordPress white screen of death. It can cause quite the panic if you’ve never encountered it before. This is one redditors experience with the fatal error.

I just set up a new fresh WordPress website through GoDaddy hosting. When I uploaded the theme Fusion (that I bought on ThemeForest) it loads all the plugins, pages,… etc. However, when I want to view the website all I see is a white page with nothing on it? Even after importing demo data numerous times nothing happens and it still shows only a blank page. Can someone help me or tell me what is causing the problem? It’s not a bad plugin as I have deactivated different ones already. – Troubled Redditor

A savvy WordPress user left a short but useful comment that helped lead the troubled redditor towards the solution.

Enable WP_DEBUG then reload the page. – Savvy WordPress User

Thanks to WP_DEBUG, he was able to figure out that the Elementor page builder was causing a conflict.

This was exactly it. I downloaded the config file, changed it from false to true and then my website showed an error. The error was caused by Elementor so it’s all fixed now. Thanks for the help! – Troubled Redditor

How To Eliminate The WordPress White Screen of Death Forever

What Is The WordPress White Screen of Death

Don’t panic when you come face to face with the WordPress white screen of death. Know that a WSOD is almost always caused by a PHP error and is generally, relatively easy to fix.

Good luck telling that to your clients though.

Your client will most likely freak out when they are unable to access their wp-admin or view the front-end of their site.

It’s your job, as the web designer, to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Problem is that troubleshooting the WordPress white screen of death can take quite a bit of time.

Let’s go through the most common ways to troubleshoot and fix the WordPress WSOD.

How To Troubleshoot & Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death Fast

The first thing you need to do before starting the WSOD troubleshooting process is to determine whether or not the wp-admin on the site is working. If the front-end of the website is down, but the wp-admin is working, you most likely have a faulty theme or plugin.

Your Theme directory may be missing or renamed. This is common for developers who have just created a local development environment and cloned the database, which is pointing to a theme (or theme directory) that might be missing or renamed. To test this solution, try accessing wp-login.php or /wp-admin/. If you see anything, this is a good indication it’s theme-related. – WordPress Codex

Check your wp-admin by going to yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Checking out the blank front-end page can also be useful. Sometimes, it’ll tell you what’s causing the problem:

• HTTP ERROR 500
• Theme Files Missing
• Error Establishing Database Connection

This can make the troubleshooting process much faster. Here are the most common steps to troubleshoot and fix the WordPress white screen of death.

1. Increase PHP Memory Limit
2. Check for Plugin Conflicts
3. Check for Theme Conflicts
4. Use the Debugging Feature to find Conflicts

Step 1. Increase PHP Memory Limit

The first step that you should take to troubleshoot the WordPress white screen of death is to increase the PHP Memory Limit. Do so by going to your wp-config.php file. Add in the following code:

define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’);

If this doesn’t work, you have a few other options to increase PHP Memory Limit. You can also use your .htaccess file to increase the memory limit, simply add the following line:

php_value memory_limit 64M

If this didn’t fix the white screen of death, then it’s probably caused by the third-party software on your website. Time to troubleshoot the plugins.

Step 2. Check for Plugin Conflicts

The basic idea is to disable all of the plugins on the website and then enable them one by one until you find the culprit.

Have access to the back-end?
Go to Plugins and bulk disable. Then, enable your plugins one by one refreshing the page as you go.

Tip: If you or anyone else has recently updated a plugin or added a new plugin, try checking that one first!

Don’t have access to the backend?
Connect to your FTP server. Go to your wp-content folder (in public_html folder). Inside, you’ll find a plugins folder. Rename it to anything you want (plugins_old). This makes it so WordPress can’t find the folder, effectively disabling all plugins on the site.

Check the site. If your WordPress website is no longer showing a blank page, one of the plugins is causing all of this chaos. If the website is still showing a blank page, you need to move on to step 3. Time to troubleshoot the theme.

Rename your plugin folder back to plugins to allow WordPress to find it. Open up the folder. Now, rename each plugin folder, one by one, reloading the site as you go until you find the culprit causing the horrible white screen of death.

There are several courses of action that you can take once you’ve found the plugin(s) causing the problem.

• Delete the plugin
• Disable the plugin while waiting on support
• Rollback updates on the plugin (if caused by an update)
• Update your plugin to the latest version

One thing that you’ll have to do is contact the developer, inform them of the issue, and wait for the problem to be solved.

Step 3. Check for Theme Conflicts

If plugins weren’t causing the issue, then the second-most-likely cause of the white screen of death is theme-related.

Have access to the back-end?
Go to Themes and select the default WordPress theme (Twenty Seventeen). Reload the website and see if it fixes the white page of death.

Don’t have access to the backend?
Connect to your FTP server. Go to your wp-content folder (in public_html folder). Inside, you’ll find a theme folder. Rename the theme folder, reload the site, and WordPress will have reverted back to the default theme.

If the website is no longer showing a blank page, you have an issue with the theme. It could be a conflict or a bad update. Anyway, you’ll have to contact the developer, inform of the issue, and wait for the problem to be solved.

Step 4. Use the Debugging Feature to find Conflicts

If you’re a more advanced WordPress user, you can enable debugging which will expose any errors. To enable WordPress debugging, open the wp-config.php file of your WordPress install.
Inside, find the following line:

define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, false );

Replace false with true and reload the website.

define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );

You’ll still get a blank white screen but this time there should also be error messages. They’ll help you figure out what’s causing the problem.

Eliminating The WordPress White Screen of Death Forever

Yes, it’s possible to eliminate the WSOD. And no, it’s not easy. Maintaining complete control of the environment is the key factor in eliminating the WSOD.

What does that mean?

Well, the environment is made up of several elements: the server, host, PHP, and the WordPress application. You’ll need to one, understand how to properly set up each element of the environment, as well as optimize it. And two, maintain control over the environment.

Controlling the environment can be taken care of fairly quickly through various client proofing methods. But, unless you’re an IT guru, setting up and optimizing the environment will require hours of technical learning and experience. Don’t be discouraged. We’ve come up with a way for you to prevent it from ever happening again.

How does OPTe prevent the white screen of death from ever happening again??

The first way that we prevent the WSOD from happening is all thanks to our carefully curated built-in library. This collection of themes and plugins is fully managed by us. Meaning we:

• Update the collection
• Vet before adding new additions
• Remove discontinued/vulnerable software
• Routinely perform advanced testing

This allows us to one, have control over what’s in the system. And two, offer you the most popular third-party software currently in the community.

The second way that the WSOD is prevented is actually by design. As OPTe is a fully-hosted and fully-managed platform, the environment is under our control. That means our team of WordPress experts is always tinkering and better optimizing the system without any interference from users. This way, every site has the best features, is built for speed, and has conflicts limited to a minimum.

The third way that we prevent a WSOD from ever happening is through an advanced monitoring and alert system. This system is necessary because, as we all know, software isn’t perfect. So, while we have eliminated 99% of WSOD occurrences, there’s still a small chance that it could happen. Our advanced system discovers conflicts and alerts us as soon as they happen. This allows us to find and resolve the issue before you, your client, or anyone else even knows about it.

Activating your site on OPTe solves the white screen of death from the get-go! Check out how OPTe.io is making WordPress easier for everyone.

Let us know if one of the steps above fixed the issue for you. Are we missing something? Do you know of other ways to fix the WordPress white screen of death? Share with us below in the comments!

Activating your site on OPTe solves the white screen of death from the get-go!