WSOD critical
WordPress White Screen of Death
A blank white page with no error is WordPress’s "white screen of death" — a fatal error with display turned off.
What you see
(a completely blank white page — no text, no error, no content)
What’s actually happening
Every page (or just wp-admin) renders blank. There’s a fatal PHP error, but error display is off, so you get nothing to go on. Almost always a plugin, theme, or memory issue introduced by an update or edit.
Common causes
- A plugin or theme update introduced a fatal PHP error or incompatibility
- Exhausted PHP memory limit
- A corrupted core file or a bad edit to functions.php
- PHP version mismatch after a host upgrade
How to fix it
- Turn on debugging to see the real errorSet WP_DEBUG and WP_DEBUG_LOG to true in wp-config.php. The blank screen becomes a specific error naming the file and line — that’s your culprit.
- Deactivate all plugins, then re-enable one by oneLocked out of admin? Rename the wp-content/plugins folder via SFTP to force-deactivate all. If the site returns, restore the folder and disable plugins individually to find the bad one.
- Switch to a default themeRename your active theme’s folder so WordPress falls back to a default (Twenty Twenty-X). If that fixes it, the theme — or a recent functions.php edit — is the cause.
- Raise the memory limitAdd define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’); to wp-config.php if the debug log mentions exhausted memory.
Stop it recurring
Update plugins/themes on a staging copy first, and keep automated backups so a bad update is a one-click rollback.
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