White Screen of Death
The WordPress white screen of death (WSOD) is a blank white page with no error message displayed. This WordPress blank page issue occurs when a PHP fatal error happens with error display disabled. The white screen of death WordPress problem can affect your entire site or just the admin area. Understanding how to fix white screen of death errors requires enabling debugging to identify the underlying PHP issue.
What You're Seeing
- Completely blank white page with no content or error (WordPress white screen of death)
- No error message visible to help diagnose the WordPress blank page
- White screen of death may affect entire WordPress site or just wp-admin
- Browser shows blank page but page source is completely empty
Why This Happens
- 1PHP fatal error causing white screen of death with display_errors disabled
- 2WordPress memory limit exhausted leading to blank page
- 3Plugin or theme conflict triggering PHP errors and white screen
- 4Corrupted WordPress core files causing white screen of death
- 5Syntax error in functions.php creating blank page
How We Fix It
Our senior engineers follow this systematic approach to resolve the issue quickly and permanently.
Fix White Screen of Death - Enable Error Display:
Add these lines to wp-config.php to see the actual error causing your WordPress blank page:
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true);
Refresh the white screen of death page and you'll now see the specific PHP error. This reveals exactly what's causing your WordPress blank page.
Disable Plugins to Fix White Screen of Death: Via FTP, rename your /wp-content/plugins/ folder to plugins-old. This disables all plugins at once. If the white screen of death WordPress issue disappears, one of your plugins caused it. Rename back to "plugins", then rename individual plugin folders one by one to identify the culprit.
Increase Memory Limit for WordPress Blank Page:
If the white screen of death is from memory exhaustion, add to wp-config.php:
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');
Most WordPress white screen of death errors from memory issues are fixed by increasing the limit from default 64M to 256M.
Fix Theme Causing White Screen of Death: Via FTP, rename your active theme folder in /wp-content/themes/. WordPress will revert to a default theme. If the WordPress blank page disappears, your theme had the PHP error causing the white screen of death.
Preventing This Issue
Prevent white screen of death by: always testing WordPress theme and plugin updates in a staging environment first, enabling WP_DEBUG_LOG permanently to catch errors early, keeping regular WordPress backups before any changes, monitoring PHP memory usage and increasing limits proactively, using a child theme for customizations to avoid corrupting parent theme files, regularly reviewing error_log files for PHP warnings before they become fatal. Proper testing prevents most WordPress white screen of death issues.
Related Guides
If you're experiencing this issue, you may also want to check these related problems:
- 500 Internal Server Error - The most common website crash causing a 500 internal server error. When you see this critical error, your server encountered an unexpected condition and couldn't complete the request. This 500 error fix guide covers WordPress 500 errors, PHP fatal errors, and all internal server error causes.
- WordPress Memory Limit Exceeded - PHP running out of allocated memory, causing crashes or failed operations.
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