WordPress 3.0 is coming up soon. These tips apply for all WordPress versions. WordPress is one of the most used and powerful blog engines. And with all the community support, many plugins are developed to make WordPress more powerful and nice. But not all plugin developers code their plugins to WordPress standards. And sometimes this will cause problems; the most annoying problem is a blank page error. No error message, no sign of life, just a white blank screen. The first tip for you all is “don’t panic“.
Analyze your website with these steps:
- Check your hosting server. The first step is to check your hosting server by going to your server administration (usually cPanel). Check if it’s live or not. If not, then contact your hosting server support. If it’s alive, then the problem is on your blog.
- Check wp-admin. Check your wp-admin folder by going to http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin. See if it is alive and not blank. If it is not blank, then your WordPress doesn’t have a problem. You can check your themes and files in the root folder. If it is blank, then there are lots of possibilities, but most of the time it’s plugins and themes.
- Check index.html. Yes, check if there is any blank index.html in your root folder. I know it’s strange but you can refer to my old blog post about it here.
- Check error_log. Open your favorite FTP client program then download the error_log file at the root of your blog. Analyze it; see what makes your blog error out. Usually I find out what caused the error in this file. Usually it has memory problems, file not found problems, and so on. Pay close attention to the error message and fix it.
- Rename the plugin directory. To check if there is an error with your plugin, rename your plugin folder. Then access your wp-admin. If the wp-admin shows up, then you have a plugin error. Now it’s your job to find out which plugin is crashing.
- Check all the plugins. To check all the plugins, I usually move all plugins to a temp directory. And put them back one by one into the plugins folder, checking wp-admin until it shows the blank page error again.
So like I said, please don’t panic; check all your installation, plugins, and themes folders. If it is still not working, contact your hosting support and ask them to help you.
Good luck and happy blogging.