By: Janet Anthony
WordPress is one of the easiest platforms to use and navigate, but for the novices or beginners, it can also be disorienting. If you are starting your own website or blog and planning to use WordPress, it would do you good to read about the most common errors that you might encounter in WordPress to get up to speed on how to get them fixed in case you come across the same ones in the future. We compiled the usual ones to help you out.
Internal Server Error
If you see the phrase, “Internal Server Error” or “500 Internal Server Error,” it means that the server could not identify the root cause of the problem. This is not exclusive to WordPress and can occur with other things that are functioning on your server, as well.
How to fix it: Since the server could not locate the problem, you’ll have to try different methods to fix this. Here are some of them.
- Check if the .htaccess file is corrupted and rename it. You’ll have to go to your site and log in using the FTP and look for the file that is placed in the same directory where wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes folders are located.
After renaming the file, try to reload the site to check if it solved the error. If it did solve the problem, then good for you. You can now go ahead and create a new .htaccess file by going to Settings > Permalinks and hit the save button. - If the first one didn’t work, you don’t have to panic. You can try to increase the PHP memory. It could be that you are consuming too much memory of your PHP limit. Here are the steps you can follow if you have to increase it.
- The first thing you should is to create a new php.ini or a text file that is blank
- Paste the following code into the new file
memory=128MB
- Save the file as ‘php.ini’
- Use FTP and upload or paste it into your /wp-admin/ folder
If it solved the problem, then the site should work temporarily. You must figures out what is it that is consuming the limit of your memory like a plugin or theme function. If you are still unable to find it, you can ask the company responsible for your web hosting, to check your server logs and help you diagnose the problem.
- Try to disable all of your plugins if both of the solutions above still don’t work. It would be more difficult to find out which plugin is causing it so it is better to deactivate all of them at once if you have more than one. If it works, then it means that a certain plugin is a reason for the problem. Simply activate them one by one to check which one is causing the problem. Once you have it figured out, you can report the plugin error to its author.
- If everything mentioned above still didn’t work, maybe you will have to re-upload the core files, which are the folders wp-includes and wp-admin. You do not have to worry about it won’t delete any information but if it happens that any of the included files was corrupted, it may be the solution.
- If all else fails, your hosting provider might be able to help you.
Syntax Error
If you accidentally omitted a code or the code has the wrong syntax, the error will result in a Parse error. This indicates that there is a mistake in the code that can be found in the line number of the script.
How to fix it: Just edit the code that is the main reason of the error and reload the page. Once you are done, just save the file and re-upload it to your server.
Even the best websites that use WordPress platform encounter syntax errors. They just know how to work around it. Do not worry; you’ll get the hang of it.
Returning 404
When you see this error in one of your pages while the others are working fine, you should try to update or your permalinks of reconfiguring them.
How to fix it:
- You just have to go to Settings > Permalinks then hit the save changes button. This will update the settings of your permalinks.
- If it does not fix the problem, you can try to manually update your .htaccess file. In order to do so, you will have to use FTP to login to your server and change the permission of your file to 666 to make it rewritable then repeat the first solution we mentioned above and change back your permission to 660.
Error Establishing a Database Connection
This error clearly indicates that your website is unable to establish a connection to the database. It could be that the login credentials in your database have been modified or updated. Maybe your database is just unresponsive at the time or corrupted.
How to fix it:
- You will have to check first if the same error message is appearing on the front-end and back-end of your site. If they are not the same, then it means there was a corruption in your database. If you see the same message, type the code, ‘wp_allow_repair’, true and enter into your wp-config.php file. Once you are done, you can visit the site, https://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php and check the settings.
- If the problem is not fixed, double check your database details in the wp-config.php file.
- Just a reminder before you try to fix the problem is to create back-ups in case things would go wrong.
Plain ‘White Screen of Death’ with No Error Message
When you see a white screen, plain, and without any error message, it could have been that you have consumed the limit of your PHP memory or there is a configuration problem on your server.
How to fix it:
- Do not panic. This is pretty common. You can fix this.
- Disable your plugins all at once to check which one is the problem. Activate them one by one and if you discover the specific plugin that is the reason for the error, disable and delete the plugin and report the issue to its author.
- Replace your current theme with the default theme. You must first create a backup of your theme folder before you delete it. The default theme will be automatically applied once you deleted the current theme. If this resolved the error, you should check the functions.php file of your theme to correct any mistakes.
- You could also try to use WordPress debug function to check which errors are showing up. You can try to clear the cache, as well.
- If all solutions did not work, it is possible that the core has been corrupted. You should try to reinstall a fresh copy of WordPress.
These are just 5 of the most common WordPress errors that people encounter and we have provided you detailed instructions on how to fix them so you won’t have to panic when you encounter them. You may also want to improve your UI design to avoid or to at least minimize errors of your WordPress website.
