Troubleshooting and repair

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Website will not load, how to find the cause The site does not load at all. Run these five checks in order and you will usually find the cause in a few minutes.

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White screen in WordPress, causes and the fix A blank white page means PHP crashed halfway through. Here is how to make the error visible and fix the most common causes.

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500 Internal Server Error, what it means and how to fix it A 500 error says the server crashed but not why. Here is how to find the real cause in the error log and fix the most common cases.

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404 errors on a site, when they matter and how to fix them Not every 404 is a fault. Here is how to tell a harmless missing page from a real problem, and how to fix the latter.

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A hacked website, first steps and clean-up Unfamiliar pages, redirects or a Google warning. Here is what to do in the right order without destroying the evidence.

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Why a WordPress site is slow and what you can do about it Slowness almost always comes down to the same four things. Here is how to measure the real cause and fix it in the right order.

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Browser says the site is not secure, how to fix the SSL error The warning can come from an expired certificate, the wrong address or mixed content. The error message tells you which one it is.

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403 Forbidden, what causes it and how to fix it The server understood the request but refuses to show the page. The cause is nearly always file permissions, a directory rule or a security rule.

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What the gateway errors 502, 503 and 504 mean The site does not respond but the error is not a plain 500. The number tells you where in the chain the fault is and what to check first.

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Error establishing a database connection, how to find the cause One line of text has replaced your site. The content is not gone, WordPress simply cannot reach the database right now.

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WordPress stuck in maintenance mode, how to release the site The site says Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance and the notice will not go away. The cause is one file left behind by an interrupted update.

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ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS, the site redirects itself in circles The browser reports too many redirects. Two rules point at each other, and the loop only breaks when one of them is removed.

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There has been a critical error on this website, how to find the cause WordPress reports a critical error and promises to send an email. That message usually names the plugin that brought the site down.

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Cannot log in to the WordPress admin, how to find the cause The public site works but wp-admin will not open, bounces back to the login form or shows a blank page. Work through these six causes in order.

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The WordPress password reset email never arrives, how to get in anyway You asked for a new password and nothing came. The cause is almost always that the site cannot send email, and the password can be changed without it.

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A plugin broke the site, how to disable it without the admin You activated a plugin and the site went down in the same second. When the admin is out of reach, the plugin can be switched off over a file connection in minutes.

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A WordPress update failed or got stuck, how to finish it The update stopped, keeps spinning or says another update is already in progress. All three share the same root, and the fix has to be done in the right order.

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Allowed memory size exhausted, how to fix running out of memory The site fails on memory or execution time. Raising the limit helps for a while, but the real fix is finding out what eats the memory.

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The site looks broken, the styles do not load The content is there but the design is gone and the page is plain text stacked up. The stylesheet is not loading, and there are four likely reasons.

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Images do not show on the site, how to find where they went A broken icon or an empty box has replaced your images. The files are usually still there, but the address or the permissions are wrong.

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Changes do not show on the site, how to clear the right cache You edited a page and saved it, but visitors still see the old version. Caching happens in three layers and clearing the wrong one does nothing.

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The padlock is missing although SSL is valid, mixed content explained The certificate is fine but the browser shows no padlock. The page loads encrypted while part of it loads unencrypted, and the browser says so.

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Image upload fails in WordPress, causes and the fix The media library reports an HTTP error or says the file is too large. Three limits and one permission problem explain nearly every case.

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The site redirects to an unknown address, what to do Visitors end up on a strange site even though the address is right. This is a break-in, and the redirect is hidden so that you do not see it but your visitors do.

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Google warns about your site in search results, how to get the warning removed The search result says the site may be hacked or dangerous. The warning only clears once the cause is fixed and a review has been requested.

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The contact form does not work, messages never arrive The form looks like it sends but nothing turns up. This is the most expensive silent fault there is, because enquiries disappear unnoticed.

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WordPress does not send email, the cause and a lasting fix Password resets, form messages and order confirmations disappear. The cause is almost always that messages are sent in a way recipients no longer trust.

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The online store checkout does not work, how to narrow it down fast The order stalls, a payment method is missing or the confirmation never comes. Checkout is a chain of four parts, and the fault is always in one of them.

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The domain expired and the site vanished, what to do The site and the email stopped working at the same moment. The domain renewal was missed, and there is limited but usually sufficient time to act.

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