How To Fix WordPress Blank Page Issue? 4 Easy Methods

Many website owners have encountered WordPress blank page problem. So called “White Screen of Death.” If you are long time WordPress user, you have probably experienced at least once that your WordPress site shows only blank white page.

All your hard work and content is nowhere to be found. Just blank white page with no errors or information’s where it went wrong. Well it happened to me too. I came to check my site and get unpleasant surprise seeing blank WordPress page.

Usually when this white screen of death appears WordPress login page is also blank and user/admin can’t even access to WordPress admin panel. Surprisingly that wasnt the case with me. I was able to login as admin.

Deactivating plugins and changing theme didnt helped. Luckily I found advice, searching the Internet for solution, suggesting reinstalling WordPress from my wp-admin. You don’t lose anything. It just reinstalls WordPress. That helped and blank page was no longer a problem. Site was online and working again. Big relief it was.

 

What Causes WordPress Blank Page?

Because there is no error output in most cases, you are left clueless to figure out what is the issue. To make things even harder, white screen of death sometimes only affects certain part of website.

For example, you may only see the white screen of death on your WordPress admin while everything else works fine. In other cases, you may only see it on a specific post while everything else runs just fine. So finding and fixing the problem can be very frustrating and time-consuming.

In this post I will give common causes of site showing white page and fixes that usually help. Hope you have backups in case there is no help. If you still don’t use backups (don’t you care for your business?) you can check best free backup plugins for WordPress site.

 

WordPress White Screen Of Death Common Causes

If you have more than one site, check if the blank page problem is just on one of your websites or on all of them. If the issue is with all of your sites, then it is a strong indicator that your web hosting provider is having some issues (if you all host them with same hosting provider).

If the issue is only with one of your sites, then it is probably issue with a plugin or theme that you are running. If the issue is only happening with a single post or page, then you know it is definitely a problem with your specific site.

 

Common causes:

1. Incomplete upload of core WordPress files – If you install or upgrade WordPress and it shows you White Screen of Death, you might not have uploaded all of the core files. And even if you are sure that all files are uploaded, its good to upload again just to be sure.

2. Bad, Corrupt, or Incomplete Theme Files – Sometimes, the problem can cause activated theme. If you’ve just set a new theme or edited existing that may cause error.

3. Incompatible Plugins – Plugins are useful. But more plugins, more problems. They can conflict each other or with existing version of WordPress.

4. WP config file – Your website wp-config.php file could be the problem. If you are editing your wp-config file avoid any unnecessary empty lines. Also if you don’t know what you are doing, then it is probably better not to edit it at all.

5. Permissions – If your files do not have sufficient permissions, then your pages will not be shown. And you’ll get the blank WordPress page.

6. Memory Limit – Majority of the time when you see a white screen of death, it means that you exhausted the memory limit.

Since the problem can be caused by any number of things, it may require a lot of time and patience. Check out solutions provided below. Maybe some of them help you get back on your feet.

 

How to Fix WordPress Blank Page?

 1. Increasing Memory Limit – Open your wp-config.php which is located in the root WordPress directory. Then add the following line inside the main php tag: define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M');

That will increase memory limit to 124M. You can also increase to 64M, 256M, 512MB depending how much your host allows. If you still get the error after this fix, then try to contact your host.

Most likely, they would have to go in their php.ini file to increase the memory limit for you.

 

2. Disable all Plugins – You can deactivate plugins in two ways (if you don’t have access to wp-admin). One way is by FTP and other using phpMyAdmin.

     – FTP method: You will need to either use FTP, or your host’s file manager. Navigate to the /wp-content/ folder. Find folder called plugins.

Rename the plugins folder to anything that you like. For example  “plugins_old”. Once you do this, all your plugins will be deactivated.

Or do above mentioned with File Manager. If the problem causing blank white page was with your plugins, you should be able login to your /wp-admin/.

Once you do that, go back to your /wp-content/ directory and rename “plugins_old” back to plugins.

Now starts elimination method. Activate one plugin at a time until your site breaks again. Then you will find out which plugin is problematic.

     – phpMyAdmin method: If you don’t know where to find phpMyAdmin, then try FTP method above. In your WordPress database, go to the wp_options table.

Find the option name “active_plugins”. Now edit the value of that option and change it to this: a:0:{}

 

3. Replace Theme – Try replacing your current active theme with a default twenty theme or any other. Again you can use FTP, or your host’s file manager.

Navigate to the /wp-content/ folder. Find folder called themes. Double click and find your theme name folder. Just rename it, for example  “mxtheme_old”. Once you do this, default theme will be activated.

If this fixes the issue, then you should look at your theme’s functions.php file. If there are extra spaces at the bottom, then you should consider fixing it.

If you are using a poorly coded function in your theme’s functions.php file, then it can cause this as well.

 

4. Reinstall WordPress – Re-install a fresh copy of WordPress. While unlikely, it is possible that a core file may have been corrupted.

 

NOTE: You can also use the WordPress debug function to see what type of errors are being outputted.

Add the following code in your wp-config.php file:

error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', 1);

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true);


Once you add above code, the blank page will now have errors, warnings and notices. These may be able to help you determine the cause.

 

Fix Blank Page In WordPress Summary

Nobody likes to see WordPress site showing blank white page. It is very frustrating error. I hope some fixes above helped you. If did which one? Do you maybe have another solution? Let me know in comments below. You could help others too.


DISCLOSURE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I might get a small commission, without any extra cost to you. Read more about it here.

6 thoughts on “How To Fix WordPress Blank Page Issue? 4 Easy Methods”

  1. Hello, I have tried everything. But in vain!
    I am using A2hosting comes with A2 Cache optimization inbuild.
    When I set WP_CACHE as false (instead of true) in wp.config file.
    Blank page problem gone!

    Anybody using A2hosting or any hosting with inbuild wordpress optimization, I hope this workaround will help.

    Thanks !

  2. Hi,
    I have performed all the action that should be for fixing white blank page on wp-admin but unfortunately it can’t be fixed. I have re-uploaded fresh file of wp-admin and wp-includes folder, checked wp-settings.php, wp-config.php, functions.php for extra space or closed tags, it is fine. Renamed plugin and theme folders, but didn’t resolved yet. Please help me regarding this. Recent error I am founding in my error_log is

    PHP Deprecated: implode(): Passing glue string after array is deprecated. Swap the parameters in /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/wp-toolkit/plib/vendor/wp-cli/wp-cli/php/WP_CLI/DocParser.php on line 75

    PHP Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/wp-toolkit/plib/vendor/wp-cli/wp-cli/vendor/mustache/mustache/src/Mustache/Parser.php on line 278

    Please help me to fix the white blank page on wp-admin issue.

    1. Hi Manish,

      Unfortunately, I can’t provide help to your issue as that would require for me to have access to the site and cPanel or FTP.

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