If you have used WordPress for a long time, you must have encountered some errors that cause you great headaches and drive you crazy. However, the good thing is that the majority of these errors are already fixed by some developers and WordPress experts. Therefore, you only need to search on Google or go through the WordPress Forum to find the resolutions, and fix them accordingly.
To ease your burden of finding the troubleshooting personally, we have collected the top 10 common WordPress errors, along with the best ways to fix them.
- 500 Internal Server Error
- WordPress Syntax Error
- Failure of Automatic WordPress Update
- WordPress WSOD Error
- Database Connection Error
- WordPress 404 Error
- Header Error for Modification
- Sidebar Position Error
- Connection Time Out
- Visual Editor Error and Add Media Button Not Working
- WordPress Another Update in Progress Error
- Fail to Write File to Disk
- Maximum Execution Time Exceeded Fatal Error
Error No.1 – 500 Internal Server Error
This is the most common and the most annoying WordPress error. Almost all the WordPress users we know have encountered this error at least one time. Once this happens, you can be presented with the following message in your website, from which you do not know where you should check and fix. This is the worst part of this error.
In addition, the 500 Internal Server Error can be caused by so many reasons, including the bugs in your plugins, themes and server software, the lack of sufficient PHP memory limit, the unexpected errors in your WordPress core, something wrong in the .htaccess file and many more.
In this case, finding what is wrong with your website can be pretty hard. Even, this error might be a result of several reasons.
Resolution
Previously, we have already introduced a list of resolutions about how to fix 500 Internal Server Error in a detailed manner. To summarize them, what you should do include the following aspects.
- Deactivate all the used plugins and your current template.
- Increase the PHP memory in your php.ini file.
- Replace the folders for wp-includes and wp-admin with a few installation of WordPress.
- Rename the .htaccess file which might be corrupted.
Error No.2 – WordPress Syntax Error
If you are comfortable in editing the coding stuff of your WordPress site, you are probably meeting this error. It happens when you add some wrong code snippets to WordPress with incorrect syntax or missing components.
After that, you can receive a parse error in your site, which clearly indicates the exact location of the wrong coding stuff.
Resolution
This error does not stress you out as you can know what is going wrong from the error message. Then, you should target the problem and make the correction.
Error No.3 – Failure of Automatic WordPress Update
WordPress is smart and powerful enough to update itself automatically for the minor releases, development patches and major releases. But sometimes, this great feature may fail due to the connection issue of the Internet, overloading of web servers, wrong file permissions and many more.
Once this happens, you may receive an error message indicating the failure of automatic update, the white screen issue or a PHP error message.
Resolution
First of all, you should update the WordPress manually at once. Then, you need to edit the wp-config.php file and enter the following coding stuff.
Error No.4 – WordPress White Screen Issues (WSOD) Error
This is another common WordPress error happened on the majority of WordPress sites on the web. When you encounter it, both you and your readers can see nothing from your site but a white screen. Even no error messages can be checked, so you cannot figure out what is happening on your site.
According to the online research, we have found 5 reasons that are likely to cause this error the most.
- The plugins or templates you currently utilize are not compatible with your WordPress version.
- There is a conflict among your plugins and themes.
- There are some bugs in your plugins.
- You web server is meeting something wrong.
- You have exhausted the limit of your PHP memory.
Resolution
- Deactivate PluginsSometimes, the white screen issues is caused by that you have installed an obsolete or incompatible plugin, or you try to edit a plugin file but screw up. In these cases, you cannot log into the WordPress Dashboard to deactivate the problematic plugin.So we suggest you utilize FTP to solve this problem. Navigate to the /wp-content/ folder and you can see a folder called plugins. You can change the plugins folder to another name, such as plugins_disable. By this way, all your plugins are deactivated and you are able to access to the admin panel to disable plugins. Then, you can undo the name change and enable the plugins one by one and identify which one causes the problem. Once found it, you can delete and deactivate it.
- Utilize Default ThemeSometimes, you are able to view white screen issues when activating an error prone theme. It’s obviously the reason is the unsuitable theme. So what we should do to fix the problem is deactivating or deleting the problematic theme.As you are still unable to log into WordPress admin panel, you need to use FTP or hosting file manager access to the theme folder in the wp-content directory. You can simply rename the theme folder, by which WordPress cannot find the original theme file and is forced to load the Twenty Ten theme that is default automatically. Once the white screen issue disappeared, you can back to the WordPress admin panel and fix the issue in the theme settings.On the other hand, you can back up the theme folder and then delete it directly. By this way, WordPress also falls back to default theme.
- Increase Memory LimitIf there is nothing wrong in themes and plugins, you may consider that your memory is being exhausted. In order to increase memory limit, you have many optional methods, but we share the easiest in the below.Using FTP or cPanel file manager, find the wp-config.php file in the directory, and then right click it and select EDIT. Once opened the file, add the below code into the main php tag. You can adjust the memory to 64M, 96M or 128M according to your requirement.
- Other SolutionsIf you have tries all the possible ways but still cannot fix the white screen problem, you may need a little help with WordPress to debug the situation. You can add the following codes in the wp-config.php file.
Once inserted, you can refresh your site and it may come out a message to tell you something is wrong. For example, if it says something cannot be found, that usually means your site misses a file. By this way, you can find sources of white screen and then solve the problem with proper action.
Error No.5 – Database Connection Error
Just as the name indicates, this error happens when you cannot connect your WordPress database. In this case, you should check your database to find out the wrong parts. For instance, your database credentials are incorrect, including the database host, the password and the username. Also, if your website is hacked and your MySQL server is down, you may also encounter this error.
Resolution
As for how to fix the database connection error, you can try the following tips.
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- Repair your WordPress database issue automatically with the coding stuff showcased in the below screen.
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- Enter your wp-config.php file to check whether your database credentials are of no errors. If not, verify them.
define("DB_NAME", "Your DB Name");
define("DB_User", "Your DB User Name");
define("DB_PASSWORD", "Your DB Password");
define("DB_HOST", "Your DB Host");
define("DB_CHARSET", "Your DB Charset");
- Contact your hosting provider to figure out whether your MySQL server is down from the network.
- Reset the database users with more privileges.
Error No.6 – WordPress 404 Error
The 404 error refers to the page not found error. Once this happens, your readers cannot check the contents for some of your webpages, but can only see a 404 error message just like the following screenshot.
Generally, this WordPress is caused by the changes of your permalink settings. Or, if you have added the wrong coding to the search.php file or the index.php file, this error can also happen.
Resolution
To fix the 404 error, you firstly need to update your permalink settings to flush the wrong items in the rewrite rules. If this error still exists, you can edit your .htaccess file and embed the following lines of codes manually.
After making these changes, do not forget to clear the cache in both website and browsers.
Error No.7 – Header Error for Modification
If your website showcases a warning message, telling you that the header information cannot be modified, you must encounter this issue.
In fact, this is a minor error that is caused by some unnecessary spaces put into your WordPress files. According to its error message, you can know exactly which file needs to be fixed.
Resolution
This error is pretty easy to be resolved. You only need to download the wrong file using File manager or FTP, edit it for removing the unnecessary spaces between tags, and upload it to your server.
Error No.8 – Sidebar Position Error
Generally, the sidebar is located at the right hand or the left hand of the overall screen. However, if you find the position of your sidebar is below the content, you must encounter this error.
Sometimes, this error is caused by the design and structure of your currently used template. Also, if your HTML and CSS have some coding errors, this may also happen.
Resolution
First of all, you should change your current theme to one of the WordPress default themes. If this problem still exists, you should check your HTML and CSS.
- HTML – Close the div elements and remove the extra div tags.
- CSS – Adjust the width ratio so that it will not mess up the overall design of your webpages.
Error No.9 – Connection Time Out
If you use the shared web hosting service that is overburdened, you are likely to meet this error. When it happens, your server is unable to complete the request that is sent from the browsers, thus reflect the connection error.
Resolution
The best advice is to change plugins and themes.your web host to another that is rich-features. Or, you can carry out the following three tips.
- Increase your limit of PHP memory.
- Deactivate some heavy plugins.
- Remove unused templates and tools.
Error No.10 – Visual Editor Error or Add Media Button Not Working
Sometimes, you may find the missing buttons and the white texts in your WordPress visual editor, affecting the processes of editing and publishing to a large extent. Usually, this error is caused by the JavaScript issues, the corruption of TinyMCE, and the conflict between your plugins and themes.
Resolution
In addition to deactivating your plugins and themes, the best way to resolve this issue is to replace the TinyMCE scripts. For this, you simply need to find the /js/tinymce/ folder from /wp-includes/, and then, replace it with a new copy.
If the error still does not be fixed, you need to add the following line of code into the wp-config.php file.
How to Solve WordPress Another Update in Progress Error
Generally, if the primary update on your WordPress core is running in the background and you initiate another update, this error will happen. After all, WordPress itself will set an update lock option automatically in the website database. This setting will prevent the webmasters from starting another update at the same time.
The simplest to this issue will be to delete the row with value like “core_updater.lock” in table wp_options. After this, the issue will be gone.
Fail to Write File to Disk
Sometimes, you may encounter a WordPress error with such words “failed to write file to disk error”. The reason for this is relatively simply:
- You set inappropriate permissions for the files and folder.
- The disk quota has no space for you to add media files.
Normally, WordPress is looking for a permission at 644 for folder like wp-content/, especially for wp-content/uploads, and etc. So, check the writing permission of your folder and change it to the correct one.
If you don’t have enough space for media files, please ask for this from your WordPress hoster.
Maximum Execution Time Exceeded Fatal Error
Have you ever gotten into trouble that you cannot update or publish an event smoothly on your WordPress website? If so, you may have suffered “Fatal Error: Maximum execution time exceeded”. Since many readers are unfamiliar with this big issue and has lost their bearings, we would like to make a brief introduction on this error and then list several valid methods to work it out.
What Is Maximum Execution Time Exceeded Error?
The Fatal Error of Maximum Execution Time Exceeded is occasionally occurred when you update a theme, install a plugin, download an application or go head some other operations on your website. The primary cause of this issue is that the execution time exceeds the default values.
By default, the maximum execution time of PHP system is 30 seconds. If the PHP script takes excessive time to run effectively, then it results in maximum execution time error. Thus, to get rid of this embarrassing situation, you are required to expand the execution time limit.
Fix Maximum Execution Time Exceeded Error Manually
The preferred method to fix this fatal error is to modify the maximum execution time value manually. There are three files available for you to this end, including .htaccess file, wp-config.php file and php.ini file. And now, let’s get started to make a hit with the given coding stuff.
.htaccess File
Open .htaccess file at your WordPress installation folder. Since all code has been brought out, you should add the following code to .htaccess file. You are allowed to modify the values as you want. The example as below means you have increased the maximum execution time to 120s. Finally, save and close the file.
php_value max_execution_time 120
wp-config.php File
wp-config.php file is one of the most important files in WordPress that enables various configurations to make your website more functional. In the face of the maximum execution time exceeded error, this file can also act as a valid solution for you. As the way to search for .htaccess file, you need to go to Files > File Manager and open the wp-config.php file in an editor. And then, add the following code to the editor and click “Save” to confirm the change.
Note that, the number “60” means you have set the maximum execution time as 60 seconds, which can be modified if needed.
set_time_limit(60);
PHP.ini File
Open you php.ini file or create a new one via cPanel > Files > File Manager > New File. And then, add the following code to this file and modify the values according to your own needs. Save this file to make the command into effect.
max_execution_time = 120;