White Screen of Death

Blank screen after installation or theme/plugin activation.

White Screen of Death

Key Points: Total blank page, no error output, usually after plugin/theme activation or update, hides deeper PHP or memory problems.

The White Screen of Death (WSOD) is the most cryptic and unnerving WordPress error — your site goes completely blank. No warnings. No messages. Just a chilling white screen that feels like your site vanished into thin air.

🧠 What’s Really Going On?

WSOD is the result of a fatal PHP error that isn’t being displayed due to disabled error reporting. Most often, it’s triggered by:

A newly activated plugin that causes a fatal error
A theme with a missing or broken functions.php file
Hitting the memory limit allocated by your hosting plan

🚑 Step-by-Step Rescue Mission

Turn on Error Reporting by editing wp-config.php:
```
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
 define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
 define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
```
This forces WordPress to write errors to /wp-content/debug.log, which helps trace the culprit.
Rename the plugins folder to disable all plugins at once. Go to wp-content via FTP or File Manager, and rename plugins to plugins_temp. Refresh your site — if it loads, a plugin is to blame.
Switch themes manually: If you suspect the theme, rename your active theme’s folder. WordPress will fall back to the default theme if available.
Increase memory limit in wp-config.php:
```
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');
```
Or ask your host to bump the server-side memory limit.

🛡️ Pro Tip:

If the white screen appears only on the front end or only in wp-admin, you’re likely dealing with either a plugin conflict or a theme-specific problem.

🚀 Preventing Future Ghost Screens

Never activate multiple plugins at once — test them one by one
Use a staging site before pushing updates live
Monitor PHP errors regularly via your host or with a plugin like Query Monitor

WordPress Daily Routine

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