WordPress is one of the best open-source CMS on the planet and unsurprisingly, it has the biggest market share too. In other words, it is being used for website development, a lot more than other open-source CMS available in the market.
Setting up a WordPress website is very simple and it is even more, easier to enhance the features of a WordPress website through several plugins available free to use.
You can simply plug and play those plugins and add new features to your website. You don’t need to be a coder to set up or upgrade your WordPress website however if you don’t have technical skills, you may face some issues on your WordPress website.
In this blog, I am going to cover 9 common errors that you may face with your WordPress website.
#1 Error Establishing a Database Connection
This is one of the most common errors when you work on a WordPress website. Most web developers would agree with me here. Although it explains the cause of the issue that your website is not able to establish a connection with your database still newbies find it difficult to fix this problem.
So, here is the solution to this problem of “Error Establishing a Database Connection”.
A. Check in your connection file, the database host, database username, and database password used to establish a connection with the database.
B. If even after correcting all these details, you still face this problem, you shouldn’t mess with the codes or any other file. Just contact your web hosting provider because there may be some changes on the server level.
#2 Memory Exhausted Error
“Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33333355 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2222444 bytes) in /home/username/public_html/yoursite/wp-includes/…”
What do in this case? How to resolve this problem with a WordPress website?
It’s very simple!
This error simply indicates that either any WordPress script or a plugin has exhausted the default allocated memory size limit. So you simply need to add a one-line code to your wp-config file or if it’s already there, just update it to below:
define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ );
After making the necessary changes, upload it back to the server and the problem of memory exhaustion should be fixed.
#3 Internal Server Error
This is among most of the common issues that many newbie WordPress developers face. It doesn’t specify the cause of the issue in the error message itself, so one has to figure out the problem himself.
Below are some of the scenarios wherein you can face the issue of “Internal Server Error”:
A: Problem in .htaccess file
How to fix: You can either rename your .htaccess file by accessing your web server through FTP or the control panel. If this doesn’t fix the problem, you may regenerate the .htaccess file by going to Settings » Permalinks and clicking the save button.
B: Problem in any plugin(s)
How to fix: You may consider renaming all the plugins and then try reloading your website. Due to some update or corruption in any of the plugins file, your website may start displaying the error message “Internal Server Error”.
C: Memory limit issue
How to fix the problem of “Internal Server Error”
You can increase the memory limit by below steps:
- Create a blank text file with the name php.ini
- Paste this code in there: memory=64MB
- Save the file
- Upload inside /wp-admin/ folder using FTP
D: Problem in any of the core files
How to fix: You can consider replacing the existing core files of your WordPress folder with the default ones. Just download the fresh backup of WordPress and replace the core files on your server which should fix the issue of “Internal Server Error”. Since it’s a bit technical fix, you can also seek the assistance of your WordPress developer, if required.
You may want to read my complete blog on fixing the problem of Internal Server Errors in WordPress websites.
#4 White Screen of Death
As a team of WordPress developers, we also come across the problem of the white screen of Death. What exactly it is?
Well, when you update any of your plugins or themes, or even if you don’t do anything, you can sometimes see a white blank page. It may be shocking sometimes when you don’t do anything and you face this issue. Some webmasters also think that their whole work is lost, which is not the case. No need to worry. Below are some of the possible fixes to resolve this problem:
A: Disable Plugins
If you’ve recently made any changes or upgraded any of the WordPress plugins on your website after which you faced the issue of a white screen of death, you must disable those culprit plugins and find some other alternative. If you are not sure about the plugin that may have caused this issue, you can try disabling all of them and enabling them one by one. You will get to know about the plugin that is causing the issue of a white screen.
B: Increase PHP Memory Limit
The issue of the white screen of death may be because of memory limitation. You can increase the memory limit by below steps (already explained above):
- Create a blank text file with the name php.ini
- Paste this code in there: memory=64MB
- Save the file
- Upload inside /wp-admin/ folder using FTP
C: Theme
Sometimes, the white screen issue is also caused because of your WordPress theme. To verify, you can disable your existing theme enable any of the default plugins, and see whether the website works or not. If you can identify that your website theme has caused this issue, you can consider choosing another theme and using it for your website or you can hire a WordPress developer to fix this problem with your existing theme.
#5 Image Upload Issue
The image upload issue is among the most common errors that WordPress webmasters face. The consequence of this issue is that the images get disappeared from the webpages and also sometimes the webmasters are not able to upload the images from the backend. When trying to upload the images, it shows an uploading error. Does this scenario sound familiar to you?
If this image uploading issue in your WordPress website sounds familiar, here is the solution for you.
First of all, I would like to mention that the cause of this issue is the wrong permissions for the upload folder or the files inside it. So, the solution is to set the permissions right in the respective folder and files.
How to fix image upload issues in WordPress websites?
You will need FTP software to change the permissions. If you are not too sure or confident enough to do this job yourself, I would recommend you hire a WordPress developer who could help you fix it. If you think you can do it, here is the process:
Connect your website FTP and click the “wp-content” folder. You will see a folder “uploads” inside “wp-content”. Just right-click the “uploads” folder and click on the option “File Permissions”. Just make sure to set the permission to either “744” or “755” Check the option “Apply to directories only” and click “OK”.
Then, the next step is to again right-click the “uploads” folder and select “File Permissions”. This time you need to select the option “Apply to files only” and make sure that the permission is set to “644”. Hit “OK” and you are done.
Now the images on your website should be visible again. I know most webmasters wonder how this issue occurred all of a sudden. The reason that this issue happened could be because of some server upgrades because of which the permissions of some folders or sub-folders might have changed. So, this case is normal and can happen to any website or web server. There is nothing to worry about it.
#6 Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance
If you’ve been using WordPress for quite a long time already, you probably know what I mean by the error of “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance”. This error is usually shown during a plugin or theme upgrade. You must have noticed that when you update your plugins to their newer version, it takes some time for them to get updated. In the meanwhile, if any user tries to access your website, it will show an error message “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance”.
It’s always recommended to update any plugin or theme during the off-peak time (the time when you expect less traffic on your website).
Other than the plugin/theme updating process, this error may occur because of low memory issues. Because of low memory, there could be some chances that your plugins/theme couldn’t get updated properly and the website maintenance message is shown forever.
How to fix this problem of “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance”?
If you are sure that you have not upgraded any of your WordPress plugins or themes and you still see this error, then you must connect your web server through FTP and find the file “.maintenance” in your site’s root folder. You may remove or rename it and then check again. Your website should resume now.
WordPress creates a .maintenance file during the update process which shows a message to users that your website is under maintenance mode. Unless this file is removed your site will remain in maintenance mode and your users will continue to see this message.
#7 Connection Timed Out
While attempting to load your WordPress website, are you facing the issue of “Connection Timed Out”? When your website tries to run too many scripts together or run a single script that’s taking too long for your website to handle, your website will show an error message of “Connection Timed Out”.
It simply means that because of several tasks assigned to your website more than it can handle, the website loses the connection with the server.
How to fix this issue of “Connection Timed Out”?
Below are but a few simple steps to correct this problem:
A. Deactivate all the plugins and re-activate them again.
B. Enable the default WordPress theme.
C. Increase the PHP memory limit (refer to the solution for “white screen of death”)
By performing any or all of the steps mentioned above, you should be able to resolve the issue of “Connection Timed Out”. However, if you still face the same issue, you may contact your web hosting company.
#8 Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by
This is also one of the most common error messages that you may face with your WordPress website. This error usually occurs when there are some garbage codes or white spaces between the codes of a file. The best thing is that this error also displays the file name and the code line that is causing the issue. So fixing this issue is pretty easy.
How you can fix the problem of “Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by”?
A. Connect to your server using FTP
B. Find the location of the file (mentioned in the error message) and download it to your local server.
C. If you see any garbage codes in the file or white spaces before the fire line of code “<?PHP” and line of code “?>”, just remove them.
D. Upload the file back to your server
#9 WordPress Admin Show 404 Page Not Found
Have you ever faced this scenario in that your website is showing up all the webpages fine but when you try to access the admin area of your WordPress website, it shows an error “404 Page Not Found”? Usually, this error occurs when you migrate your WordPress website to a new server. Because this error has to do with an inappropriate admin URL in the database.
How to fix the issue of “Page Not Found”?
A. Connect your server using the control panel
B. Go to the database and access your existing database
C. Browse and find the table “wp_options” or if you have changed your database prefix, search for a table with the suffix “_options” and find the field “option_name”
D. Click edit and input the correct URL of your website.
Again, if you are not sure how to manage databases on the servers, please seek the assistance of your WordPress developer.
Final Words
Before you implement any of the above-suggested measures to fix the problem on your WordPress website, please take note of below precautions:
1. Take a full backup of your website, just in case.
2. If you are not sure about anything, you can ask your web developer or if you need my help, please contact me at
su*****@bh**********.com