Troubleshooting Common Issues in WordPress
WordPress® is one of the most commonly used blogging applications. While it's extremely popular, there are some common issues that you can fix in a matter of minutes.
Here are some common problems and our recommendations.
My WordPress site is slow
Cause: Every time a visitor goes to your WordPress blog, the server processes PHP scripts and establishes a database connection—in other words, it's doing a lot of work. The busier your site is, the slower this process becomes.
Slow page loads are problematic as they discourage visitors from visiting your site. The usual culprits are improperly configured or misbehaving plugins or using images that are hosted on other, slower servers.
Solutions:
- Consider installing plug-ins like W3 Total Cache, WP-Super-Cache, and WP-DBManager.
- Replace links to external images with images uploaded to your WordPress site.
- Disable all of your plugins and enable them individually to determine which plugin causes the slowing. For more information, see Troubleshooting WordPress Plugin Issues.
Why is WordPress unable to connect to my database during install?
Cause: If you manually installed WordPress into your hosting account (e.g. did not install it via Value Applications) and are getting an "Error establishing a database connection" message when trying to connect to WordPress, you need to modify your wp-config.php file to work with our Database servers.
Solution: See Why is WordPress unable to connect to my database during install?
My blog keeps coming up as a blank page
Cause: Corrupted themes can cause blank pages to load, particularly if you migrated your blog from another hosting provider.
Solution: Change your theme back to the default, and then reinstall the theme you want to use.
- Go to your WordPress Dashboard.
- Click Appearance. A default theme is listed.
- Click Activate under the default theme. The Appearance page reloads.
- Click Activate on the theme you want to use, or choose a new theme.
- When you have the theme you want, return to the Appearance page, select the theme you want, and then click Activate.
Cause: Undetermined.
Solution: If you have tried the above procedure, you should enable WP_DEBUG
and WP_DEBUG_LOG
in wp-config.php file. The contents of the debug.log file can help you and your site administrator narrow down the problem to a specific plugin, theme, or configuration option that might be causing a problem.
- Using your hosting account's editor, make the following changes to your
wp-config.php
file:- Change define('WP_DEBUG', false);todefine('WP_DEBUG', true);
- On the following line, type
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
- Change
- Save your changes.
- Using an Internet browser, visit your site to trigger the debugging log.
- Using your hosting account's editor, open
/wp-content/debug.log
. - Review the contents of the debug log to identify the problem to a specific plugin, theme, or configuration option that might be causing a problem.
For more information, see WordPress.org.
For more information, see Why is my site slow?
NOTE: As a courtesy, we provide information about how to use certain third-party products, but we do not endorse or directly support third-party products and we are not responsible for the functions or reliability of such products.