How To Fix The Common Errors In WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular CMS worldwide that people use to create websites. Though it is popularly used for creating blogs, developers use it to create various types of websites as well.

Like any other CMS or software, you might face different errors while using WordPress as well. But, if you know how to fix them, you are good to go.

In this blog post, we are going to discuss most common WordPress Errors and their fixes.

Most Common WordPress Errors And Their Fixes

1. White Blank Screen (Popularly Known As “White Screen Of Death”)

When you open your WordPress site and see a blank white screen with no other information, it becomes tough to find out the reason because there is no error you see but a blank page.

This error is commonly known as “White Screen Of Death”.

There could be many different reasons for this, and thus, there could be different fixes.

Causes

• Poorly coded theme
• Plugin Compatibility issue
• Exhausted Memory Limit

Solutions

1. If the cause is poorly coded theme, the first thing you can do is to revert to the default theme and see whether your site opens fine or not. If it does, change to a better theme.
2. If plugin compatibility is the issue, try deactivating all the plugins, and activate one by one, and find out which plugin is the culprit. Once you find that, delete that plugin, and find its alternative plugin to use.
3. When Memory limit in WordPress is exhausted, there are possibilities that you get this White screen issue. You can login to your site’s FTP or cPanel, and find out the file wp-config.php and include this line of code.

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

This will increase the memory limit to 256M.

2. Error Establishing Database Connection

This is one of the most common errors WordPress users face. When this error comes, the problem is somehow related to your site’s database.

Causes

• Wrong Database details entered in wp-config.php file
• Database Server is down
• Database gets corrupted

Solution

1. Open the wp-config.php file by visiting the cPanel, and cross-check the Database name, Database username, password, and Host. They must be correct because until they match with the database, you have created for your site, they won’t connect to that, and thus, the site won’t open and throws the error. So, if there is anything wrong there, fix that, and your site will start working. If not, then there could be other issues as mentioned above.
2. Sometimes the web host you are hosting your website with might has some problem having their servers or just database server down. If that is the case, you cannot do anything from your side. All you can do is ask your hosting company to fix the issue ASAP. If the database server down issues comes frequently, it’s time to move to a better web host and to name a few Hostinger, 00webhost.com, One.com, Hawkhost, Bluehost, Digital Ocean.
3. Another reason for this issue is that your database is corrupted. In that case, go to wp-config.php, and include a line of code as:

define( 'WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true );

This will enable you to repair and optimize your database.

Now, you can navigate to example.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php [replace example.com with your site]. There you will see this.

Do proceed with it!

And once this is done, make sure you remove that code you added to wp-config.php because if you leave that there, this repair page can be accessed by anyone without login as it is not secure. Removing the code will disable this page.

You can also try reading the blog post by 000webhost about fixing the error “Error Establishing Database Connection”. They have really a good guide out there.

3. 500 Internal Server Error

Another most common WordPress error that WP users face a lot is “500 Internal Server Error”. The newbies who are not much aware of WordPress technicalities get upset of this error.

If you are one of them, don’t worry as we are going to talk about the causes that made this error happen, and their solutions as well so that you can easily fix your site and make that working again.

Causes

• Corrupted .htaccess file
• Corrupted functions of theme
• Corrupted functions of Plugin
• Exhausted Memory Limit

Solutions

1. Login to cPanel or access site’s files using FTP, and there you will see .htaccess file. If you don’t see it in the cPanel, make sure to show hidden files because on default this file is kept hidden. Now, rename it to anything such as htaccess_notworking or htaccess_old. Then try loading your site and see if it is working fine. If it does, the issue was with htaccess only. Now, since you renamed the htaccess, you need to create a new one, and for that, go to WordPress dashboard, General => Permalinks, and reset it. It will create a new fresh htaccess file.
2. Theme’s functions get corrupted sometimes, and that start creating problems and throw errors. If you want to know if this is causing the issue, login to the dashboard, and switch to the default theme. If the site works now, the issue was due to the theme so that now, you can change to another better theme.
3. Similar to Theme’s functions, plugin functions may get corrupted too. In that case, try deactivating, and then activating one by one, and find out which plugin is causing the error. Once found, you can delete that theme, and the site starts working.
4. This issue comes due to memory exhaust issue as well. If that does, then follow the steps as we mentioned earlier in this post about increasing the memory limit. Hopefully, this will make your site opening fine.

Final Thoughts

These are some of the most common WordPress errors that WordPress users frequently face. We have tried best to mention the causes, but many times there can be some other causes too.

In the WordPress, whenever you get some issues, make sure that you try deactivating and activating plugins, and changing the theme to default.

These steps must be checked first before doing anything else because in WordPress many small and big issues are solved just by doing these.