Topics

  • The White Screen of Death
  • Internal Server Fault
  • Fault Establishing Database Connection
    • Incorrect wp-config.php Data
    • Problems with Your Web Host
    • Compromised Website
  • Failed Auto-Upgrade
  • Connection Timed Out
  • Maintenance Manner Following Upgrade
  • You Make Changes and Zero Happens
  • Pretty Permalinks 404 and Images not Working
  • Custom Post Type 404 Errors
  • Specific Error Messages
    • PHP Errors
      • Fatal Errors and Warnings
      • Parse errors
      • Use of an undefined constant
    • Database Errors
      • Fault 13 – Cannot Create/Write to File
      • CREATE Command Denied to User
      • Error 28
      • Error 145
      • Unknown Column
    • Resources

If you are encountering a WordPress error bulletin or white screen, don't panic. Someone has likely encountered the same message before and it can easily exist solved.

This folio lists the most common WordPress errors experienced by WordPress users, and provides a starting point for fixing them. At WordPress Support, you lot volition also observe links to more detailed pages or forums where a volunteer will exist there to help.

The White Screen of Decease

Both PHP errors and database errors can manifest as a white screen, a bare screen with no information, commonly known in the WordPress community as the WordPress White Screen of Death (WSOD).

Earlier resorting to drastic measures, at that place are a number of reasons for the WordPress white screen of death:

  • A Plugin is causing compatibility problems. If you tin can access the Administration Screens try deactivating all of your Plugins and then reactivating them i by one. If you are unable to access your Screens, log in to your website via FTP. Locate the folder wp-content/plugins and rename the Plugin binder plugins_old. This volition deactivate all of your Plugins. You lot tin can read more virtually manually deactivating your plugins in the Troubleshooting FAQ.
  • Your Theme may be causing the trouble. This is particularly likely if you lot are experiencing the white screen of death after yous take simply activated a new Theme, or created a New Site in a WordPress Network. Log in to the WordPress Assistants Screens and activate a default WordPress Theme (eastward.thousand. Twenty Twenty-One). If you are using WordPress v.eight and below, please switch to Twenty Xx-1 theme since the Twenty Twenty-Two theme requires 5.9 and above. If you can't access your Administration Screens, admission your website via FTP and navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ folder. Rename the folder for the active Theme.

The WP_DEBUG characteristic ofttimes provides boosted information.

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Internal Server Error

Internal Server Fault message

At that place tin be a number of reasons for an Internal Server Error. Here are some affair you can practise to solve it:

  • The most likely consequence is a corrupted .htaccess file. Log in to your site root using FTP and rename your .htaccess file to .htaccess_old. Attempt loading your site to encounter if this has solved your problem. If information technology works, make sure to visit Settings > Permalinks and reset your permalinks. This volition generate a new .htaccess file for you.
  • Try deactivating all of your Plugins to encounter if information technology is a Plugin event. If you are unable to admission your WordPress Administration Screens, conciliate your Plugins via FTP by following these instructions.
  • Switch the Theme to a WordPress default Theme (e.m. 20 Twenty-One) to eliminate any Theme-related problems. If you are using WordPress 5.eight and beneath, please switch to Twenty Xx-One theme since the Twenty Twenty-Two theme requires 5.9 and to a higher place.
  • Increment the PHP Memory limit
  • Endeavour re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh install of WordPress.

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Mistake Establishing Database Connection

If yous get a page featuring the message "Error Establishing Database Connection," this means that there is a trouble with the connection to your database and there could be a number of reasons for this. The following are possible reasons and solutions.

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Incorrect wp-config.php Data

"Error establishing a database connection" is commonly caused by an mistake in your wp-config.php file. Access your site in your FTP client. Open up wp-config.php and ensure that the following are correct:

  • Database name
  • Database username
  • Database password
  • Database host

Learn more about editing wp-config.php.

If yous are sure your configuration is correct you could endeavor resetting your MySQL countersign manually.

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Bug with Your Spider web Host

The next footstep is to contact your spider web host. The following hosting issues may be causing the problem:

  • Your database has met its quota and has been close down.
  • The server is downwardly.

Contact your hosting provider to see if either of these issues is causing your trouble.

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Compromised Website

If y'all take checked wp-config.php for errors, and confirmed with your host for hosting issues, it is possible that your site has been hacked.

Scan your site with Sucuri SiteCheck to ensure that it hasn't been compromised. If it has you should check out My Site was Hacked.

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Failed Auto-Upgrade

There will be situations when the WordPress machine-update characteristic fails. Symptoms include:

  • A blank white screen and no information.
  • A alarm that the update failed.
  • A PHP error message.

The WordPress automatic upgrade feature may fail due to a glitch in the connectedness with the chief WordPress files, a problem with your Internet connection during upgrade, or incorrect File Permissions

To update your WordPress site manually, see the Manual Update article.

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Connection Timed Out

The connectedness timed out error appears when your website is trying to practice more than your server can manage. It is particularly common on shared hosting where your memory limit is restricted. Here are some things you can try:

  • Deactivate all Plugins. If deactivating all the WordPress Plugins on your site resolves the issue, reactivate them one-past-one to see which plugin is causing the problem. If you are unable to access your Administration Screens, read about how to manually conciliate your plugins.
  • Switch to a default WordPress Theme. If y'all are using WordPress 5.8 and below, please switch to 20 Xx-One theme since the Xx Twenty-2 theme requires 5.9 and to a higher place. This should dominion out any Theme-related problems.
  • Increment your memory limit in wp-config.php. If you are on shared hosting you may have to ask your hosting provider to increase your memory limit for you.
  • Increment the maximum execution time in your php.ini file. This is not a WordPress core file so if you are not sure how to edit it, contact your hosting provider to inquire them to increase your maximum execution time. Come across below instructions for increasing maximum execution fourth dimension.

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Maintenance Mode Post-obit Upgrade

When WordPress updates, information technology automatically installs a .maintenance file. Following upgrade, you lot may receive a message that says "Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Please cheque dorsum in a minute." The maintenance file may not have been removed properly.

To remove this bulletin do the following:

  1. Log in to your website using your FTP program
  2. Delete the .maintenance file, which will be plant in your site root.

Read more almost the maintenance mode issue.

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You Brand Changes and Nothing Happens

If you lot are making changes to your website and yous do not see the changes in your browser, yous may need to clear your browser enshroud. Your browser stores data well-nigh the websites that you visit. This makes it faster to load websites when you lot visit them because the browser just has to reload data already stored on your computer, rather than downloading it again.

If y'all make a change to a website and the browser does non think information technology is meaning, it will just load the information from your cache, and y'all won't meet your changes. To fix the problem, simply empty your browser enshroud or close the tab and reopen the link.

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If you are experiencing 404 errors with pretty permalinks and a white screen when y'all upload images, mod_rewrite may not be enabled in Apache by default. Mod_rewrite is an extension module of the Apache web server software which allows for "rewriting" of URLs on-the-fly. It'south what you need to make pretty permalinks piece of work.

WordPress Multisite networks normally experience this merely information technology can besides occur on shared hosting providers or afterwards a site migration or server motility.

Reset your permalinks through Settings > Permalinks. If this does non work, you may accept to edit the .htaccess file manually.

# Brainstorm WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [Fifty]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

If you are not familiar with editing your .htaccess file, contact your hosting provider to ask them to turn on mod_rewrite rules. In that location is more information on pretty permalinks in the WordPress Codex.

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Custom Postal service Type 404 Errors

Yous may experience bug with 404 errors and custom post types. Try the following steps:

  1. Make sure that none of your Custom Post Types and single pages have the same name. If they do, rename the single page, including the slug.
  2. Log in to your WordPress Administration Screens, navigate to Settings > Permalinks. Select the default permalinks. Save. Then reselect your preferred permalinks. This will affluent the rewrite rules and should solve your problem.

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Specific Error Messages

At that place are a number of different errors that will appear in your error logs. To access your error logs you will need to turn on debugging and and then locate your error log via FTP. The following data will assist you lot to decipher some of the mutual error letters.

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PHP Errors

Below are some common PHP error messages.

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Fatal Errors and Warnings

If you receive a alarm that WordPress cannot modify header information and headers are already sent, information technology ordinarily means that you take spaces or characters before the opening tags or afterwards the endmost tags. Read how to prepare the headers already sent error.

If you are experiencing this problem when you have just installed WordPress you may accept introduced a syntax error into wp-config.php. These instructions will assist you lot to fix the error.

Call to undefined function

An error reading call to undefined role could mean that a WordPress Plugin is trying to find a file or data which isn't present or accessible in the code. Reasons for this include:

  • An error when trying to auto-install or car-upgrade a Plugin. Try installing or upgrading the Plugin manually.
  • An fault when trying to auto-install or auto-upgrade a Theme. Endeavour installing or upgrading the Theme manually.
  • You may be using an incompatible WordPress Plugin or incompatible Theme. This could happen with older versions of WordPress and a new WordPress Plugin, or if you lot are trying to use a WordPress Multisite Plugin on a single site installation. Upgrade WordPress to resolve this effect.
  • You may be trying to call a office that doesn't exist. Bank check functions.php for misspellings.

Try deactivating the WordPress Plugin or changing the WordPress Theme that acquired the error to appear. If you are unable to do this from within the Administration Screens, you lot may take to do this manually via FTP.

Allowed retentivity size exhausted

An Allowed Memory Size Wearied error means that your WordPress installation doesn't have enough memory to achieve what y'all desire. You lot tin effort out the following steps:

  • Increase your memory limit in wp-config.php
  • Increase your memory limit past editing php.ini. This is not a file that comes with WordPress so if you are unfamiliar with information technology you should contact your spider web host well-nigh increasing your memory limit.
Maximum execution time exceeded

You may receive a message such equally "Maximum execution time of thirty seconds exceeded" or "Maximum execution time of threescore seconds exceeded". This ways that it is taking to longer for a procedure to consummate and it is timing out. At that place are a number of ways to ready this error.

Editing .htaccess

Brand sure y'all support .htaccess earlier you lot edit it.

Add the following line to .htaccess:

php_value max_execution_time lx

Editing php.ini

Add the following to php.ini 

max_execution_time = 60

If y'all are unsure of how to brand these changes, or if you lot are on shared hosting that prevents yous from making them yourself, you lot should contact your hosting provider and ask them to increase your maximum execution time.

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Parse errors

Syntax Error

A syntax fault means that you have fabricated a mistake while creating your PHP structure. Yous could, for case, exist;

  • Missing a ; at the cease of an individual line.
  • Using curly quotation marks.
  • Missing a curly bracket.

When this fault appears it will tell you which file the error appears in (functions.php for example) and approximately which line (information technology may non always be the exact line so be sure to check just before and merely afterward) in the lawmaking.

Unexpected

If you are receiving an mistake which says 'parse error: unexpected' this usually ways that yous have forgotten to include a character. The nearly common are:

  • Unexpected '=' : you have forgotten to include the $ when referencing a variable
  • Unexpected ')' : you have forgotten to include the opening bracket (
  • Unexpected '(' : you take forgotten to include the closing subclass )
  • Unexpected T_STRING: you have forgotten a quotation mark or a semi-colon at the end of the previous line
  • Unexpected T_ELSE: you have an else argument with no opening if statement

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Utilise of an undefined constant

As with parse errors, "use of an undefined abiding" means that you are missing a character. It could be one of the following:

  • Missing a $ when referencing a viariable
  • Missing quotation marks around array keys

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Database Errors

The following errors may appear in relation to your WordPress database.

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Mistake xiii – Cannot Create/Write to File

There are a number of reasons why y'all may exist experiencing this error.

MySQL cannot create a temporary file.

The MySQL variable tmpdir is set to a directory that cannot exist written to when using PHP to access MySQL. To verify this, enter MySQL at the command line and type prove variables. You'll go a long list and one of them will read: tmpdir = /somedir/ (any your setting is.)

To solve this, alter the tmpdir variable to point to a writable directory.

  1. Detect the my.cnf file. On *null systems this is commonly in /etc/. On Windows system, Find the my.ini.
  2. Once found, open this in a unproblematic text editor and find the [mysqld] section.
  3. Under this section, find the tmpdir line. If this line is commented (has a # at the offset), delete the # and edit the line then that it reads: tmpdir = /writable/dir where /writable/dir is a directory to which you tin can write. Some utilise /tmp, or you might also effort /var/tmp or /usr/tmp. On Windows, utilise C:/Windows/tmp.
  4. Save the file.
  5. Shutdown MySQL by typing mysqlshutdown -u -p shutdown.
  6. Start MySQL by going to the MySQL directory and typing ./bin/safe_mysqld &. Usually the MySQL directory is in /usr/local or sometimes in /usr/ on Linux systems.

The file permissions are incorrect

Right the File Permissions.

If none of this make sense and y'all have someone to administer your system for y'all, testify the above to them and they should be able to effigy information technology out.

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CREATE Command Denied to User

This fault occurs when the user assigned to the database does not have acceptable permissions to perform the activeness to create columns and tables in the database. You will demand to log in to CPanel or Plesk to requite your database user adequate permissions.

Alternatively you can create a new user to assign to your database. If you do create a new user you volition demand to ensure that it is updated in wp-config.php.

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Error 28

It could exist because:

  • you are out of space on /tmp (wherever tmpdir is), or,
  • you accept besides many files in /tmp (even if there is lots of costless space), or,
  • Your cache on your server is full

This is a MySQL error and has nada to practice with WordPress direct; yous should contact your host about it. Some users have reported that running a "repair table" command in phpMyAdmin fixed the problem.

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Mistake 145

This indicates that a tabular array in your database is damaged or corrupted. If y'all are comfortable using phpMyAdmin you can use these instructions on repairing your MySQL database tables.

Always fill-in your database before performing any deportment on information technology.

If you take non used phpMyAdmin before, or are uncomfortable doing and then, contact your web host and ask them to run Bank check/REPAIR on your database.

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Unknown Column

An unknown column error tin be acquired by a missing column in the database. If you have just upgraded WordPress then try manually upgrading again. To update your WordPress site manually, meet the Update article.

If you are running a database query when you lot encounter the mistake then you may by using incorrect quotation marks for the identifier quote character. This question on Stack Overflow provides more details. Besides see the MySQL documentation.

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Resources

  • MySQL Error Codes and Messages