WordPress White Screen of Death: How to Fix It

Your site shows a blank white page. No error, no text, nothing. WordPress is hitting a PHP fatal error but suppressing it for security – so you get silence instead of a crash message. The fix is always the same starting point: make WordPress show you the actual error. Once you see the error, the fix is usually obvious. This guide walks through every step.

Why the White Screen Happens

WordPress shows a white screen when PHP encounters a fatal error that it cannot display. By default, WordPress suppresses error output on production sites for security reasons – you get a blank page instead of “Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted.” The underlying cause is usually one of these: a plugin or theme update that introduced a PHP error, running out of PHP memory, a PHP version incompatibility, or a corrupted WordPress core file.

Step 1: Enable Debug Mode to See the Error

Connect to your server via FTP or File Manager. Open wp-config.php. Find this line:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', false );

Replace it with:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );

Reload the white screen page. You should now see the actual PHP error instead of a blank page. The error message tells you exactly which file and line number caused the problem. Note the plugin or theme filename mentioned in the error – that is your culprit.

If debug mode still shows a blank page, the error is happening before WordPress loads debug settings. Check your PHP error log directly in your hosting control panel (usually in the Logs section or a file called error_log in your web root).

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Step 2: Deactivate All Plugins via FTP

If you cannot access wp-admin, deactivate plugins via FTP without needing to log in. Connect to your server and navigate to wp-content/plugins/. Rename the entire plugins folder to plugins_disabled. WordPress cannot find the plugins folder and deactivates all plugins automatically. Reload the site. If it loads, one of the plugins caused the white screen.

Rename the folder back to plugins. Now rename individual plugin folders one at a time, reloading the site after each rename, until the white screen returns. The last renamed plugin is the culprit. Leave it renamed (disabled) and restore the others.

Step 3: Switch to a Default Theme

If deactivating plugins did not fix the white screen, the theme may be the cause. Navigate to wp-content/themes/ via FTP. Rename your active theme folder. WordPress falls back to a default theme (Twenty Twenty-Three or similar). If the site loads with the default theme, your theme’s code has a PHP error. Contact the theme developer or restore a backup.

Step 4: Increase PHP Memory Limit

The white screen sometimes occurs because WordPress runs out of PHP memory mid-page. Add this to wp-config.php:

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

If your host allows it, also add to .htaccess:

php_value memory_limit 256M

Reload the site. If this fixes it, the white screen was a memory exhaustion issue, which often means a plugin is using excessive memory. After restoring access, investigate which plugin is the memory hog using the Query Monitor plugin.

Step 5: Re-upload WordPress Core Files

If the white screen affects wp-admin but the frontend works (or vice versa), a core file may be corrupted. Download the latest WordPress zip from wordpress.org. Extract it on your computer. Upload all files except wp-content/ and wp-config.php to your server, overwriting the existing files. This replaces core files without touching your content or configuration.

Disable Debug Mode After Fixing

Once the site is working, disable debug display on a live site. Leaving WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY true shows PHP errors to visitors. Set WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY back to false while keeping WP_DEBUG_LOG true to write errors to a log file (/wp-content/debug.log) instead of displaying them.