WordPress 3.0 is coming up soon. This tips apply for all WordPress version. WordPress is one of the most used and powerful blog engine. And with the all community support, many plugins are developed to make WordPress more powerful and nice. But not all plugin developer coded their plugin as WordPress standards. And sometimes this will make problem, and the most annoying problem is blank page error. No error message, no sign of alive, just white blank screen. The first tips for you all is “don’t panic“.
Analyzes your website like this steps:
- Check your hosting server
The first step is check your hosting server by go to your server administration (usually cpanel). Check if that’s live or not. If not then contact your hosting server support. If alive then the problem is on your blog. - Check wp-admin
Check your wp-admin folder by go to http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin. See if it is alive and not blank. If it is not blank, then your WordPress don’t have a problem. You can check your themes and files on the root folder. If it is blank, then there are lot of possibilities, but most of the time is plugins and themes. - Check index.html
Yes, check if any blank index.html in your root folder. I know it’s strange for you but you can refer to my old blog post about it here. - Check error_log
Open your favorite FTP client program then downoad error_log file at the root of your blog. Analyze it, see what make your blog errors. Usually i found out what make it errors in this file. Usually it have memory problem, file not found problem, and so on. Pay more attention to the error message and fix it. - Rename plugin dir
To check if there is an error with your plugin, rename your plugin folder. And then access your wp-admin. If the wp-admin show up, then you have plugins error. Now it’s your job to find out what plugins that crashes. - Check all the plugins
To check all the plugins, i usually move all plugins to temp directory. And put it back one by one to plugins folder, and check wp-admin until it blank page error again.
So like i said please don’t panic, check all your installation, plugins and themes folder. If it is still not working, contact your hosting support and ask them to help you.
Good luck and happy blogging.
Thanks Ivan. I WAS panicking. I renamed the plugin directory and then was able to use wp-admin. I will find the guilty plugin now.
Glad i can help you Rawbear..
Thanks Ivan. I WAS panicking. I renamed the plugin directory and then was able to use wp-admin. I will find the guilty plugin now.
Glad i can help you Rawbear..
I have the white screen problem… VIA FTP I changed the name of the plug-in directory and made a new plugin directory but I still have no luck. Any ideas as to what could be the problem?
If it is not a plugin issue. Then it is something broken with your wordpress installation.
Backup your database, and reinstall your wordpress.
Thanks for the advice. I'm going to have to figure out how to back up my database and reload WP without using the control panel inside of WordPress. Any tips? I have FTP access and phpmyadmin (which I've never used).
Thanks (really) for commenting back… It helps.
Reinstall wordpress is not hard thing to do if you know what to do.
If you never use your FTP and PHPMyAdmin, i suggest you to ask your support from your Hosting provider to do so.
If you made mistake, then you lost your database then it's all gone.
Thanks Ivan.
I had a problem moving a WordPress install to another host and ended up with a blank wp_admin page. I couldn't remember all of the possible causes, but your list of things to check helped me fix it. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a problem with a plugin.
Thanks again.
It's nice to hear that my article help you out 🙂
Hi Ivan and a big thank you for clearly and concisely describing a good step by step troubleshooting for the blank page problem.
I also had a problem with plug-ins just like David, for me it turned out to be the WordPress automatic upgrade plug in.
Excellent post!
Thank you, renaming plugins was a great idea.
I also like your sense of calming, it helped!!
Glad to hear that i can help you 🙂
Cheers.
I had a similar issue but the problem turned out to be a permission issue. WordPress apparently has to perform some functions under the www group on our server, whereas all of the files that I had uploaded were under my privileges. Once this was remedied, the blank screen disappeared and all is well.
Thanks for your feedback mate. Permission issue is the one that i missed in this tips.
I will remember your feedback as my future reference. Cheers.
Thanks Ivan for restoring my sanity.
Renaming plugins folder got my heart beating again and the client smiling.
Now I just need to find the one causing the problem.
Thanks Ivan! I was freaking out about the white screen until I found this post. It was just a plugin issue.
Thanks! why wordpress blank page could happen? my wordpress have been occured this problem, but at that time i have no method, only re-installed it,
That could be many things. But usually one or some plugin crash or themes crash.
i just finish uploading WP3.0.1on my server and i do fresh install after i finish all processes and i see this message “”All right sparky! You’ve made it through this part of the installation. WordPress””
i press on Run the install then i no know what happened ..the page die … and it keep return me to “wp-admin/install.php” folder …
i check PhpMyAdmin to see if WP installation create the table on the database put i found nothing …
I try this steps twice and got same result !!
How you upload your WordPress files? One by one by FTP or you upload the zip file and then extract?
rename your plugin directory and do the update.
If the result still the same then your just do reinstall or ask your hosting support to help you.
thanks Ivan i solve the problem with my site by uploading all WP3 files again and it work smooth now ….it's was issue with some files was not uploaded correctly ..
and i face another issue with my local WP and i solve by following steps you mention ..you done great work ..
Thanks for the post above which is really useful. I’ve just upgraded to WP 3.01 and whilst the homepage of my site displays correctly it’s when I click on any link in my navigation that leads me to a blank page (white). It’s only ‘static’ pages that have been affected not posts.
The links themselves are correct according to the pages but even in the dashboard whilst the page info can be viewed all present and correct, you cannot view them when you click on the ‘view page’ link.
Any ideas?
Thanks so much for this – turned out that a plug-in I installed on a sub-folder to test (eShop) rendered my website useless. It appeared in my top-level installation; once I'd deleted this, white screen stopped white screening.
Again, thank you
Ivan, I've just upgraded to WP 3.01 and now the white blank page displays when I click "new post" and "edit post". I try all of your steps and I still have no luck. 🙁
Thank you very much! It was indeed a problematic plugin that was causing the white screen of death.
Thank you dude you saved my ass with this one. Whoooooooooo Hooooooooo
You should take off the donot follow on your comments. you might get more!!!!
Glad that i can help you JDog.
I don't want to get spammed. I hate spammers.
And this comment system is using disquss, that's 3rd party system.
HAHAHA THANK UUUU SO MUCH, I renamed plugin folder and my blog working fine now 😀 will use your suggestion temp folder to move plugins one by one
<b>though i done lots of research i cant solve my this problem will you help me plz??</b>
check your email!
Thanks Ivan! I was freaking out about the white screen until I found this post. It was just a plugin issue.
no worries mate!
Thanks Ivan.
I found my problem. It's a plugins error.
Hi Ivan,
I am trying to set up wordpress (WordPress 3.0.1) on localhost running Windows 7. I already installed latest versions of Apache, PHP & MySQL which are working fine. When I type http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php it displays blank screen. I am new to wordpress. Please help me to solve this issue.
Thanks in advance.
RJ
well first thing to do is redownload the wordpress installation. and check your server configuration. i suggest you to use xampp: http://www.ivankristianto.com/web-development/server/local-server-for-testing-environment-with-xampp-on-windows/1566/
After wp-admin was blank, I deleted a plugin I had recently installed, fixing everything. Thanks!
No worries mate.
Thanks for this, has fix a big problem for me!
Wow, I've run into this problem before, escpecially every now and then on a localhost server (my computer), but this time it is real serious! The site itself is showing up, but even after going through every little detail (disabling plugins, making sure no extra files, combing through phpMyAdmin, everything I tells U) still getting the blanko with the Admin section?? But online, exact same site works fine! I am not asking for your help cause this would be a toughy, unless your a magician or something!
Hi Rain Wilber,
Update your localhost server, i recommend use XAMPP.
And follow this post to run your wordpress blog in your localhost server http://www.ivankristianto.com/internet/blogging/bring-your-wordpress-blog-to-local-server-for-testing-environment/1602/
O.k., you must be a magician, cause its working now! What did it take? Well, it was a theme issue, like you stated above. Not sure what exactly is the issue, but changing the theme through PHPmyAdmin (options 45 and 46, template and stylesheet), to the WordPress default (TwentyTen) got things fired up again… Thanks Ivan!
Good Day Ivan,
I started using XAMPP a few months ago, after learning the hard way, that there is a nice easy way! I agree with the instructions you provide for a localhost WordPress install. The culprit in my case seems to be something within my themes coding that is preventing the wp-admin from displaying (however, exact same code works for the online !). Can you recommend any other possible debugging methods?
Well for debugging tools you can use xdebug for php. I'm still writing the article and it is still draft. But it is good to trace where the php code go wrong. But here is the hints you can check before you use xdebug.
1. Absolute path. Please check if your themes use absolute path instead of relative path.
2. PHP function which is only work in Linux environment
3. PHP open tag.
Hope this help.
Thanks alot…..this is a LIFEsaver
for me it was an incompatible plugin. But thanks for the checklist to go through!
for me it was an incompatible plugin. But thanks for the checklist to go through!
Thank you very much! You TOTALLY saved my ass!
My problem was a index.html in the root… I sincerely don't know how the hell it arrived there but I'm glad that I can solve this.
Greetings from Romania! You're doing a great job!
Great article!!Thanks for the step-by-step explanation.I followed these steps and
successfully implemented it…thanks again for the information…Carry on the great work!
Hi thanks for this… I found that if I started straightaway on moving the plugins to a temp folder using dreamweaver / ftp client then I immediately got the admin screen back 🙂 thank you
Thank you for breaking this down, although I was really just being too stubborn to check each plugin in the first place.
Thanks for this. Surprisingly it was the stupid index.html file – what a newbie move!
@newwpthemesnet Yeah, i was scratch my head for 1 hour to find this too. glad i can help you.