WordPress White Screen of Death: what to do when your site goes blank
Your site is blank. Now what?
You open your WordPress site and instead of your homepage you get a white page. No error, no message, just nothing. This is the famous White Screen of Death, and it scares everyone the first time it happens. It is almost always fixable, and usually in a few minutes.
In this post I walk through the most common causes and the exact order to check them. Work top to bottom, and you will find the culprit before you reach the bottom.
1. Check if it is really the whole site
Open the site in a private window and also try the admin area at /wp-admin. If the admin loads but the front end is blank, the problem is usually in your theme. If both are blank, it is more likely a plugin or a PHP error. This one check narrows the search a lot.
2. Turn on error reporting
Most of the time the white screen is a PHP fatal error that is being hidden. Turn on error display so WordPress tells you what is wrong. Add this to wp-config.php, right after the database settings:
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);Reload the page. If a message appears, you have your answer. If nothing shows, check wp-content/debug.log for the error. Remember to turn this off on a live site when you are done.
3. The memory limit, the usual suspect
You mentioned memory, and you are right to suspect it. A plugin or theme that asks for more memory than PHP allows throws a fatal error and the page goes blank. Bump the limit in wp-config.php:
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');If that fixes it, the real problem is a plugin or theme using too much memory, and you should find which one rather than just raising the limit forever.
4. Disable plugins one by one
Rename the wp-content/plugins folder to wp-content/plugins-off using your file manager or FTP. This disables every plugin at once. If the site comes back, a plugin is the cause. Rename it back, then disable plugins one at a time by renaming their individual folders until the site breaks again. That folder is your culprit.
5. Switch to a default theme
If plugins are not the problem, try the theme. Rename your active theme folder in wp-content/themes/. WordPress falls back to a default theme. If the site loads, your theme is the issue, usually a PHP error or a compatibility problem with a recent update.
6. Check for a compatibility break
If the white screen started right after an update, the cause is often a plugin or theme that is not compatible with the new WordPress or PHP version. Check the plugin and theme pages for updates, and look at the PHP version your host is running. Sometimes a plugin needs a newer PHP version, or an old one breaks on PHP 8.
7. Still blank? Check the basics
If none of the above works, check a few boring things that cause blank screens too: a full disk on the server, a corrupted .htaccess file, or a broken file permission. Ask your host to check the server error log, which often has the exact line that is failing.
The short version
White screen of death is a PHP error hiding behind a blank page. Turn on error reporting, check the memory limit, then disable plugins and switch themes to isolate the cause. Nine times out of ten it is one plugin or one theme update, and you can fix it in minutes without touching your content.
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