Wordpress - white screen of death login issues - and then some

December 10, 2014 5:54 PM

The owner (Mr Firstname Lastname) of a website I manage (firstnamelastname.com) notified me of a plugin issue that was visible to users on the front page of his site. So I went to try to login to admin. Oh no! WSOD! No login option! So I googled...

Google's advice and my actions...
1. Disable plugins via FTP. Clear Cache. Reload wp-admin.php √ - no change
2. Disable themes to force use of default theme. √ - no change.
3. Activate Debug in wp-config.php (true). √ - now able to see errors. BUT front public view of site has now gone, replaced by error list.
4. Remove plugin mentioned in errors via FTP. √ - now fewer errors and warnings.

Here's an image of the error/warning list. The redacted bits are not the full name of the website (firstnamelastname) but only firstname, which is the owner's login name.

Any ideas anyone? I have an advert on Mefi Jobs to fix it if it is more complicated than I can manage without handholding.

posted by Kerasia to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

In your wp-config.php file, is there a line that says something like:

define('WP_CACHE', true);

If so, try removing that line?
posted by seldomfun at 6:15 PM on December 10, 2014

Response by poster: Yep, there is a

define('WP_CACHE', true);

and I have removed it and cleared my browser cache. Still no action. Error messages have changed somewhat (all now 'notices') but no access or site yet.
posted by Kerasia at 6:45 PM on December 10, 2014

In your wp-config.php file, there may be a line that's

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

If so ... change that to

define( 'WP_DEBUG', false );

See if that helps.
posted by kellygrape at 6:54 PM on December 10, 2014

Response by poster: See if that helps.

It makes the errors invisible but it does not facilitate access to the admin login or page. It just leaves a WSOD.
posted by Kerasia at 7:03 PM on December 10, 2014

Since it seems from your log that plugins are still being called (i.e. the shopping cart ones), what about temporarily moving a bunch of your plugins out of the plugin directory and into some other folder?
posted by johngoren at 7:12 PM on December 10, 2014

Sorry, I wasn't sure if the errors were just pushing the rest of the content down. Hm. johngoren's idea is a good one - that will force the plugins to deactivate. You can then log in (hopefully), and add the plugins back to their original folder, then start activating them one at a time.
posted by kellygrape at 7:21 PM on December 10, 2014

You haven't disabled plugins.

You need to FTP into /wp-content/plugins/ and empty it. I'd save a copy locally or elsewhere on the host server.
posted by humboldt32 at 8:00 PM on December 10, 2014

Response by poster: Still no login or website.

1. Pulled all plugins from plugin folder and put them in another folder called ALPHA (still in wp-content) but I left the index.php file that was there in the plugins folder.
2. Pulled all themes but default from theme folder and put them in another folder called BETA.
3. Updated default via FTP.
4. Renamed the following files in my wp-content folder by adding -temp to their title:
*       w3-total-cache-config.php to w3-total-cache-config-temp.php
*       wp-cache-config.php to
*       advanced-cache.php
and a folder titled 'cache'.

I still have DEBUG set to true but I have no errors displyed. I have nothing just WSOD.
posted by Kerasia at 8:12 PM on December 10, 2014

At this point, I'd copy the whole thing somewhere else and install a fresh WordPress. You can try putting wp-content back and use the old database, but I wouldn't trust the existing install.
posted by advicepig at 8:32 PM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Seconding advicepig, you'll have the best results if you start with a fresh WP install, update wp-config to connect with the database, add your wp-content/uploads folder, then one-by-one start re-incorporating theme and plugin files.

For the future, it might be a good general practice to also keep a local copy of any Wordpress site on your computer, which can be run using MAMP (Mac only) or XAMPP. That way you can test file changes locally before pushing them to the live site.
posted by seldomfun at 8:42 PM on December 10, 2014

Response by poster: A fresh install is definiately on the cards.

For the future...

I wasn't making any file changes when this happened. I think 'automatic update' is the culprit here.
posted by Kerasia at 8:53 PM on December 10, 2014

1. What is in your .htaccess file at the root?

2. Do you have access at your webhost to error logs?

3. If you upload a static file - call it test.html - and put today's date in it, and then navigate to it, is it visible?

4. If you do the same thing, call if test.php and put it at the root with the contents <?php echo 100 + 100; ?> does it work?
posted by artlung at 9:29 PM on December 10, 2014

Response by poster: 1. What is in your .htaccess file at the root?

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

2. Do you have access at your webhost to error logs?
I have the error logs available through cpanel.

3. If you upload a static file - call it test.html - and put today's date in it, and then navigate to it, is it visible?
Yes.

4. If you do the same thing, call if test.php and put it at the root with the contents <?php echo 100 + 100; ?> does it work?
Yes.
posted by Kerasia at 9:49 PM on December 10, 2014

I have the error logs available through cpanel.

What do they show? I would expect these to show something interesting when you load the home page. More interesting if I could look at it with everything as it was, but still.

Feel free to MeMail me.

(also, answers on 1,3,4 are unremarkable and positive and point at WP and not other extant issues, which is good)
posted by artlung at 10:02 PM on December 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks artlung. Memail sent.
posted by Kerasia at 10:15 PM on December 10, 2014

Oh it sounds like Total Cache could be killing you, you may need to delete the extra files that Total Cache leaves lying around, they're called "object cache.php" or something like that and I can't remember if they are in wp-content but somewhere like that. It is a fine plugin but the source of many nightmares when turned off.
posted by johngoren at 10:23 AM on December 11, 2014

Response by poster: Artlung fixed it!

I can't say exactly what the problem was but I have a suspicion that it was a conflict between an outdated theme and an automatically updated plugin. I am hoping artlung will come back in later to explain things for anyone reading along.

Fortunately I had a weekly backup which I could have used to rebuild the site if required. Having a back-up kept the anxiety-meter down in the green zone while we were working on accessing the site.

Thank you again, artlung!
posted by Kerasia at 3:38 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Okay! Ultimately what I think happened was that either the theme, or the plugins, or wordpress itself got corrupted during the upgrade process in the past. What I did was put *back* all the existing plugins and themes, download a fresh copy of the theme, turn off and on WP_DEBUG and selectively activate and deactivate plugins and themes by renaming their folders.

I tried all kinds of stuff, but apache & php error logs told me nothing. Fresh upload of wp-includes, wp-admin folders and *.php files helped a lot, but not totally. At one point I could log in, but all the admin pages were actually blank. Then I selectively deactivated plugins and got different results.

In terms of broader lessons - not sure what they are - but keep your wp-content folder as sacrosanct, do a mysqldump backup before any kind of debugging like this, and selectively deactivate plugins by renaming them.

I also investigated upping memory limits and other things but none of that appeared to help. I added FTP information to wp-config.php (as in my answer here) and updated some other plugins and they updated correctly so I think the install is in good shape.

WP_DEBUG is funny because in this case it helped me point to which plugins to deactivate (the ones throwing errors) but it wasn't completely helpful because only after a full install of fresh WP install of files from wordpress.org did things start not being blank.

Also - hah! I had totally forgotten I had helped you out before. :-)
posted by artlung at 4:35 PM on December 11, 2014 [4 favorites]