Does your site show a blank (white) page, or the message “There has been a critical error on this website”? Then a PHP error stopped WordPress. WordPress usually also emails the site administrator a link to recovery mode, with the subject “Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue”.

To find out which error it is, turn on WordPress debugging and log the errors to a file:

1. Open your site’s files with FTP or your hosting file manager.
2. Find your WordPress folder: it’s the one with the wp-config.php file, usually something like /public_html/your-wp-folder. This is an important file, so download a backup copy before you change it.
3. Open wp-config.php and search for WP_DEBUG. You will usually find this line: define( 'WP_DEBUG', false );
4. Replace that line with these three lines. If the file has no WP_DEBUG line, add them above the line that starts with /* That's all, stop editing!

   define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
   define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
   define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

5. Save the file and reload the page that shows the error.
6. Open the file wp-content/debug.log. The last lines show the PHP error.

These settings write errors to the log file instead of showing them to your visitors.

Send the error to us

Copy the error and include it in a support ticket (you need an active support period to open one). Our support team will tell you what causes it and how to fix it. You can also send us a site report: it includes recent errors from the debug log.

Turn debugging off again

When you’re done, change the first line back to define( 'WP_DEBUG', false ); and delete the debug.log file. Debugging should not stay on for a live site.

You can also watch this video: