Topics

  • The White Screen of Death
  • Internal Server Error
  • Error Establishing Database Connection
    • Incorrect wp-config.php Information
    • Problems with Your Web Host
    • Compromised Website
  • Failed Auto-Upgrade
  • Connection Timed Out
  • Maintenance Mode Following Upgrade
  • You Make Changes and Nothing 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
      • Error xiii – Cannot Create/Write to File
      • CREATE Command Denied to User
      • Error 28
      • Error 145
      • Unknown Cavalcade
    • Resources

If you are encountering a WordPress mistake message or white screen, don't panic. Someone has probable encountered the aforementioned message earlier and it can hands be solved.

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

The White Screen of Death

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

Before resorting to desperate measures, there are a number of reasons for the WordPress white screen of death:

  • A Plugin is causing compatibility issues. If you can access the Administration Screens try deactivating all of your Plugins and then reactivating them one past 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 folder plugins_old. This will deactivate all of your Plugins. Y'all tin read more about manually deactivating your plugins in the Troubleshooting FAQ.
  • Your Theme may be causing the problem. This is especially likely if you are experiencing the white screen of death after you have just 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 (e.g. Twenty Xx-One). If you are using WordPress 5.8 and beneath, please switch to Twenty Twenty-Ane theme since the Twenty Twenty-Two theme requires five.9 and above. If you lot can't access your Administration Screens, access your website via FTP and navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ folder. Rename the folder for the active Theme.

The WP_DEBUG feature often provides boosted data.

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Internal Server Error

Internal Server Error message

There can exist a number of reasons for an Internal Server Error. Here are some thing y'all can do to solve it:

  • The most likely effect is a corrupted .htaccess file. Log in to your site root using FTP and rename your .htaccess file to .htaccess_old. Try loading your site to see if this has solved your problem. If it works, make sure to visit Settings > Permalinks and reset your permalinks. This will generate a new .htaccess file for yous.
  • Try deactivating all of your Plugins to see if it is a Plugin issue. If yous are unable to access your WordPress Administration Screens, deactivate your Plugins via FTP by following these instructions.
  • Switch the Theme to a WordPress default Theme (e.g. Twenty Twenty-One) to eliminate whatever Theme-related bug. If you are using WordPress v.8 and below, please switch to Twenty 20-I theme since the 20 Xx-Two theme requires 5.9 and above.
  • Increase the PHP Memory limit
  • Try re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh install of WordPress.

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Error Establishing Database Connexion

If you get a page featuring the message "Error Establishing Database Connection," this means that there is a trouble with the connectedness to your database and in that location could be a number of reasons for this. The post-obit are possible reasons and solutions.

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Incorrect wp-config.php Information

"Error establishing a database connection" is usually caused past an error 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

Larn more about editing wp-config.php.

If y'all are sure your configuration is correct you could endeavour resetting your MySQL countersign manually.

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Problems with Your Web Host

The next step is to contact your web host. The following hosting issues may be causing the trouble:

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

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

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Compromised Website

If you accept 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 yous should check out My Site was Hacked.

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Failed Auto-Upgrade

There volition be situations when the WordPress car-update feature fails. Symptoms include:

  • A blank white screen and no information.
  • A warning that the update failed.
  • A PHP error bulletin.

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

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

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Connexion Timed Out

The connection timed out error appears when your website is trying to practice more than your server can manage. Information technology is specially 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 upshot, reactivate them 1-past-one to run into which plugin is causing the trouble. If you are unable to access your Administration Screens, read nigh how to manually deactivate your plugins.
  • Switch to a default WordPress Theme. If you are using WordPress five.eight and below, delight switch to Xx Xx-One theme since the 20 Xx-Ii theme requires 5.9 and above. This should rule out any Theme-related problems.
  • Increment your retentivity limit in wp-config.php. If yous are on shared hosting you may accept to ask your hosting provider to increase your memory limit for you.
  • Increase the maximum execution fourth dimension in your php.ini file. This is non a WordPress cadre file and then if y'all are non sure how to edit it, contact your hosting provider to enquire them to increase your maximum execution time. Run across beneath instructions for increasing maximum execution fourth dimension.

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Maintenance Manner Post-obit Upgrade

When WordPress updates, information technology automatically installs a .maintenance file. Following upgrade, yous may receive a message that says "Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Please check back in a infinitesimal." The maintenance file may not accept been removed properly.

To remove this bulletin do the following:

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

Read more nigh the maintenance fashion upshot.

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You Make Changes and Zip Happens

If you are making changes to your website and you do not run across the changes in your browser, you may need to articulate your browser cache. Your browser stores information almost the websites that you visit. This makes information technology faster to load websites when you visit them because the browser merely has to reload information already stored on your computer, rather than downloading it once more.

If yous make a change to a website and the browser does not think it is significant, information technology will just load the data from your cache, and you won't see your changes. To fix the trouble, just empty your browser cache 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 you upload images, mod_rewrite may non be enabled in Apache by default. Mod_rewrite is an extension module of the Apache spider web server software which allows for "rewriting" of URLs on-the-fly. It'due south what yous demand to make pretty permalinks piece of work.

WordPress Multisite networks ordinarily experience this but it tin also occur on shared hosting providers or afterward a site migration or server move.

Reset your permalinks through Settings > Permalinks. If this does not work, you may have to edit the .htaccess file manually.

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

If you are non familiar with editing your .htaccess file, contact your hosting provider to ask them to turn on mod_rewrite rules. There is more information on pretty permalinks in the WordPress Codex.

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Custom Post Type 404 Errors

You may experience problems with 404 errors and custom post types. Try the post-obit steps:

  1. Brand certain that none of your Custom Post Types and single pages accept the same name. If they do, rename the unmarried folio, including the slug.
  2. Log in to your WordPress Administration Screens, navigate to Settings > Permalinks. Select the default permalinks. Save. So reselect your preferred permalinks. This volition flush the rewrite rules and should solve your problem.

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Specific Mistake Messages

There are a number of different errors that volition appear in your error logs. To admission your error logs you will demand to plow on debugging and then locate your error log via FTP. The following data volition help you to decipher some of the common fault letters.

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PHP Errors

Beneath are some common PHP mistake messages.

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Fatal Errors and Warnings

If y'all 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 subsequently the closing tags. Read how to ready the headers already sent error.

If y'all are experiencing this problem when you lot accept just installed WordPress you may accept introduced a syntax error into wp-config.php. These instructions volition help you to gear up the error.

Call to undefined function

An mistake reading call to undefined office could mean that a WordPress Plugin is trying to observe 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. Attempt installing or upgrading the Plugin manually.
  • An error 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 are trying to use a WordPress Multisite Plugin on a single site installation. Upgrade WordPress to resolve this outcome.
  • You may exist trying to call a function that doesn't exist. Check functions.php for misspellings.

Endeavor deactivating the WordPress Plugin or changing the WordPress Theme that caused the fault to appear. If you are unable to do this from inside the Administration Screens, you may have to do this manually via FTP.

Immune retentivity size exhausted

An Allowed Memory Size Exhausted error means that your WordPress installation doesn't have enough memory to attain what yous desire. You can effort out the post-obit steps:

  • Increase your retentiveness limit in wp-config.php
  • Increase your memory limit by editing php.ini. This is not a file that comes with WordPress and so if you are unfamiliar with it yous should contact your web host about increasing your retention limit.
Maximum execution time exceeded

You may receive a bulletin such every bit "Maximum execution fourth dimension of xxx seconds exceeded" or "Maximum execution time of sixty seconds exceeded". This means that information technology is taking to longer for a procedure to complete and information technology is timing out. At that place are a number of means to fix this error.

Editing .htaccess

Make certain y'all back upwardly .htaccess before you edit it.

Add the following line to .htaccess:

php_value max_execution_time 60

Editing php.ini

Add the post-obit to php.ini 

max_execution_time = threescore

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

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Parse errors

Syntax Mistake

A syntax error means that you have fabricated a fault while creating your PHP structure. You lot could, for instance, be;

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

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

Unexpected

If you are receiving an error which says 'parse mistake: unexpected' this usually ways that yous have forgotten to include a character. The most 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 bracket )
  • Unexpected T_STRING: yous take forgotten a quotation mark or a semi-colon at the end of the previous line
  • Unexpected T_ELSE: you have an else statement with no opening if statement

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Use of an undefined constant

As with parse errors, "utilize of an undefined constant" means that you are missing a character. Information technology could exist one of the following:

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

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Database Errors

The post-obit errors may appear in relation to your WordPress database.

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Error 13 – Cannot Create/Write to File

At that place are a number of reasons why you may exist experiencing this error.

MySQL cannot create a temporary file.

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

To solve this, change the tmpdir variable to betoken to a writable directory.

  1. Find the my.cnf file. On *nix systems this is usually in /etc/. On Windows system, Find the my.ini.
  2. In one case establish, open this in a elementary text editor and find the [mysqld] section.
  3. Nether this section, find the tmpdir line. If this line is commented (has a # at the start), delete the # and edit the line and then that it reads: tmpdir = /writable/dir where /writable/dir is a directory to which yous can write. Some use /tmp, or you might also try /var/tmp or /usr/tmp. On Windows, use C:/Windows/tmp.
  4. Relieve the file.
  5. Shutdown MySQL past typing mysqlshutdown -u -p shutdown.
  6. Beginning MySQL by going to the MySQL directory and typing ./bin/safe_mysqld &. Commonly 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 you accept someone to administrate your organisation for yous, show the above to them and they should be able to effigy information technology out.

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CREATE Command Denied to User

This error occurs when the user assigned to the database does not accept adequate permissions to perform the action to create columns and tables in the database. You will need to log in to CPanel or Plesk to give your database user acceptable 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 information technology is updated in wp-config.php.

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Error 28

It could be because:

  • you lot are out of space on /tmp (wherever tmpdir is), or,
  • yous take likewise many files in /tmp (even if there is lots of free space), or,
  • Your enshroud on your server is full

This is a MySQL fault and has nix to practice with WordPress direct; you should contact your host most it. Some users have reported that running a "repair table" command in phpMyAdmin stock-still the problem.

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Error 145

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

Always backup your database before performing any actions on it.

If y'all take not used phpMyAdmin before, or are uncomfortable doing and so, contact your spider web host and ask them to run CHECK/REPAIR on your database.

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Unknown Cavalcade

An unknown column mistake can be caused by a missing cavalcade in the database. If yous have just upgraded WordPress then try manually upgrading again. To update your WordPress site manually, see the Update commodity.

If you are running a database query when yous run into the error then yous may past using wrong quotation marks for the identifier quote character. This question on Stack Overflow provides more than details. Also see the MySQL documentation.

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Resource

  • MySQL Error Codes and Messages