How to Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death (Step by Step)

Have you ever opened a website and been greeted with a blank page instead of the content you expected?

This is known as the infamous WordPress White Screen of Death (WSOD). It is a frustrating error that only happens when something has gone critically wrong behind the scenes.

If this has happened to you, don’t panic. This guide provides a step-by-step process for diagnosing and resolving the WordPress White Screen of Death. By following these proven steps, you’ll be equipped to pinpoint the exact cause and bring your website back online quickly.

Let’s get started!

What is the WordPress White Screen of Death?

The WordPress White Screen of Death (WSOD) is a blank white screen that appears when you attempt to access your website. It usually means a fatal PHP error or database issue has occurred.

On most live websites, PHP error reporting is disabled by default for security reasons. This means that when a script-breaking error occurs, the server stops rendering the page but has no instructions to display an error message, which results in a blank output.

The issue can be site-wide, affecting both the public-facing site and the admin dashboard (/wp-admin), or it can be isolated to a specific page, post, or just the admin area.

Despite the intimidating name, the WSOD is a code execution failure. Your website’s data, including posts, pages, and user information stored in the database, is almost always safe and unaffected.

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Common Causes of the WordPress White Screen of Death

Several things can cause this error:

• Plugin Incompatibility: This is the most frequent cause. A plugin may conflict with another plugin, your active theme, or a recent WordPress core update, leading to a fatal error.
• Theme Functionality Errors: Your active theme can cause a WSOD due to poorly written code, a syntax error in its functions.php file, or an incompatibility after an update.
• Exhausted PHP Memory Limit: A script or process may require more memory than your server has allocated to PHP. When this memory limit is reached, the script is terminated, often leaving a blank page.
• Corrupted Core Files: A failed or interrupted WordPress core update can leave you with missing or corrupted files, which prevent WordPress from loading correctly.
• File Permission Issues: Incorrect read/write permissions on core WordPress files and folders can prevent the server from accessing them, leading to a failure to load.

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How to Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death: 7 Proven Steps

The White Screen of Death is a common WordPress issue that can usually be resolved by following a logical troubleshooting process. Work through these steps in order, starting with the most likely culprits, such as plugins and themes, to efficiently diagnose and resolve the error.

Step 1: Check for Plugin Conflicts

Plugin conflicts are the most common cause of this error, so your first step is to deactivate all plugins at once. You can do this by using the RunCloud File Manager to navigate to your wp-content directory and rename the plugins folder to something like plugins_disabled. If your site comes back online, then you can rename the folder and reactivate your plugins one by one to find the one causing the error.

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Step 2: Switch to a Default WordPress Theme

If plugins aren’t the problem, then your active theme might be causing an issue, especially after an update or code modification. Just as we did above, use the RunCloud File Manager and navigate to /wp-content/themes/. Rename the folder of your active theme; this forces WordPress to fall back to a default theme, such as Twenty Twenty-Five. If this resolves the issue with your site, you will need to troubleshoot the theme or contact its developer for a fix.

Step 3: Increase PHP Memory Limit

A blank screen can occur if a WordPress process exceeds the memory allocation your server has provided. To fix this, use the RunCloud File Manager to edit your wp-config.php file and add the line just before the /* That’s all, stop editing! */ line. 

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');

This simple change often resolves memory exhaustion issues. If you are using RunCloud, then you can simply modify this setting from your dashboard without ever needing to FTP into your server. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on this topic, we recommend reading our full-length article, ‘How to Fix WordPress Memory Exhausted Error: Increase PHP‘. 

Step 4: Enable WordPress Debug Mode

To view the specific error causing the blank screen, you must enable WordPress’s debug mode. You can do this by using the RunCloud File Manager to edit the wp-config.php file and change define('WP_DEBUG', false); to true to display the errors on the page itself.

Additionally, you can use RunCloud’s Error Log Monitoring to see PHP and NGINX errors directly from your dashboard. This will often point you to the exact problematic file and line number.

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Step 5: Clear WordPress and Browser Cache

Sometimes, all your plugins and themes are correctly configured, but some parts of your site serve stale cached content. This can sometimes break a site and mask a fix you’ve already applied. 

If you have performed all the above actions, you should clear your browser cache. If you use a caching plugin or server-level caching, such as RunCloud’s RunCache, be sure to purge that cache as well. This ensures you are viewing the live, non-cached version of your site.

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Step 6: Fix File Permissions and Ownership Issues

If you recently modified or created a new file on your server via CLI, then you need to make sure that you set the correct file permissions and ownership. Incorrect file and folder permissions can prevent WordPress from accessing the necessary files, resulting in a blank screen. The standard permissions are 755 for directories and 644 for files; you can check and correct these using your RunCloud File Manager or an SFTP client.

After fixing the file permissions, you can fix the file ownership issues by simply clicking the “Fix Ownership” button in the Tools menu.

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Step 7: Remove the .maintenance File or Restore a Backup

In this step, you should first check your site for a stuck “.maintenance” file in your root directory using the RunCloud File Manager, and delete it if it exists. If all else fails or you need an immediate fix, the safest and fastest solution is to restore your website from a recent backup.

With RunCloud Backups & Incremental Restore, you can revert your entire web application to a stable state in just a few clicks, ensuring no data is lost and your site is back online instantly.

Wrapping Up: Preventing the WordPress White Screen of Death in the Future

While knowing how to fix the White Screen of Death is a valuable skill, the best strategy is to implement practices that prevent it from happening in the first place. A proactive approach to site management can save you from downtime and stress by identifying potential issues before they escalate into critical failures. Here’s how you can do this:

Enable a Staging Environment

The most effective way to prevent the White Screen of Death is never to let a breaking change reach your live site. A staging environment is an exact, private clone of your production website where you can safely test plugin updates, theme modifications, and new code. If an update causes a WSOD on your staging site, your live site remains completely unaffected, giving you a risk-free space to troubleshoot the conflict.

In the future, you can use the WordPress staging environment feature directly within the RunCloud dashboard to create and manage these test sites with just a few clicks. To learn how to implement this process, we recommend referring to our comprehensive article on creating a WordPress staging environment.

Install and Manage WordPress with Git

Git is a version control system that tracks every change made to your files, allowing you to instantly roll back to a previous, working version if a new deployment causes a WSOD. This eliminates the need to manually hunt for syntax errors or faulty code after an update.

RunCloud supports atomic deployment for Git and WordPress, making this process seamless and error-free. When you deploy, RunCloud ensures the new version is fully in place before it goes live, preventing partial-update errors that often result in a blank screen. To explore this advanced, reliable deployment method, refer to our detailed guide on:

• The Easiest Way To Automate WordPress Deployments with Git
• Managing WordPress Development with Git and Composer: A Modern Approach
• What Is Bedrock? 

And finally, the most important safety net is a reliable, recent backup. Instead of relying on manual processes, use a service like RunCloud Backups & Incremental Restore to automatically save versions of your site. This ensures you can revert to a working state in seconds if an update or change causes a fatal error.

Try RunCloud’s smart server management today.

WordPress White Screen of Death FAQs