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Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 7:27pm On Nov 30, 2014
How to install WordPress using Softaculous

You can easily install WordPress on your web-site using Softaculous script installer the following way:

Login to your cPanel

Scroll down to the Software/Services section, and click the Softaculous icon.

Click the WordPress link on the left-hand sidebar in Softaculous

This page will give you some information about WordPress, including ratings and reviews from other users. Click the Install link above the header to start the installation

Choose the domain you wish to use for WordPress in Choose domain field. Then select what directory to install WordPress on using In Directory field.Note: By default, it will install to yourdomain.com/wp , but if you wish yourdomain.com to go directly to WordPress, then leave this field blank .

Click the Install link above the header to start the installation

Now enter a name and description for your site, as well as an administrative username, password, and email. If you would like a more secure password, click the key logo and a random generated password will be entered in the field. If you would like a record of your site’s settings, enter your email in the bottom field under the Install button. Click Install

After a few moments, you will see a page announcing that WordPress is now installed on your site.

Click the link to go to the WordPress admin page, or simply browse to yourdomain.com/wp-login.php or yourdomain.com/wp-admin . Login with the username and password you chose before. Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/how-to-install-wordpress-using-softaculous/

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Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 7:29pm On Nov 30, 2014
Backup or Delete WordPress with Softaculous

Softaculous is also useful for maintaining web applications you have installed with it. If you would like to backup your WordPress site, or even delete it entirely, you can easily from your Softaculous control panel


Login to your cPanel and open Softaculous as above. Select the box icon from the top right to see all the web applications you have installed:

Here you can see the web application installation time and version number, as well as a link to it. Click the folder icon to backup your site, or the X to delete it.Please note: Do not click the X button unless you are certain you want to fully delete your WordPress site

If you choose to backup the site, Softaculous will ask if you want to backup the entire directory and database. Generally it is good to select both, as you would be able to fully restore your entire site with both of these. Click Backup Installation to confirm you wish to do this

Click Ok at the prompt, and make sure to leave the webpage opening while it is backing up your site.


After a few moments, Softaculous will let you know that the backup is complete. Click the Backups link to access your backup file

Click the blue arrow to download the zip file containing a full backup of your site. Once you have saved it, you can click the red X to delete the file from the server Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/how-to-install-wordpress-using-softaculous/
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 7:37pm On Nov 30, 2014
GUIDE OF HOW TO INSTALL WORDPRESS PLUGIN

Plugin is the most important part of WordPress. Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. WordPress register more than 20k official plugins you can download it from WordPress official Site . Just search there what you want or imagine for your site. there is different tags available choose what you want and download Its all Free ! Now let see how to install WordPress plugins.

INSTALL PLUGIN ON WORDPRESS :-

for Installing plugin, First of all you have to log in to your WordPress site.

On admin dashboard left side panel options choose plugin –> Add new option

install wordpress plugin

Now WordPress provide two option for install plugin

Search Plugin By name
Manually upload Plugin
METHOD 1: INSTALL WORDPRESS PLUGIN BY SEARCH METHOD

After click on add new first your screen display search plugin so if you know any plugin name then write and hit on search. if you don’t know plugin name so there is popular tags provide below search plugin text box click on your need tag it will provide automatically list of that tag plugins

Install WordPress Plugins image

For Example i wrote w3 total cache in search plugin text box and hit search it provide the list of plugins, click install Now option and active plugin for use.

install plugin manually

METHOD 2: MANUALLY UPLOAD PLUGIN IN WORDPRESS :-

If you buy premium plugin then you get zip file of plugin now In this situation you have to install that plugin manually, WordPress provide install plugin manually by uploading feature.

Select upload option just right side of search plugin option

upload plugin

Upload your zip plugin file and click install and Activate plugin.

[Note: WordPress automatically unzip file and install plugin.]

Here are some free Plugins list which helps you to improve WordPress functionality! advanced automatic updates, Jetpack by , akismet, Limit Login Attempts, Sunny (Connecting CloudFlare and WordPress), WP Fastest Cache etc. Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/guide-of-how-to-install-wordpress-plugin/
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 7:43pm On Nov 30, 2014
5 Things that Make Your WordPress Site Run Slow and How to Fix Them

A slow loading website can hurt your small business by turning
away visitors who expect fast load times and smooth online experiences, and harming your reputation.

If your site runs slow and you’re running WordPress, there are plenty of things that could be slowing you down. Below are five common reasons for sluggish performance on WordPress platforms, and how you can fix them.

If Your WordPress Site Runs Slow. . .

You’re Running Too Many Plugins

The problem

With thousands of shiny plugins out there promising to do amazing things for your website, it’s easy to get caught up and catch plugin fever. Soon, you’ve got plugins controlling every function and feature on your site—you might even have plugins for your plugins.

This is a problem for a couple of reasons. First, the more plugins you have, the more work your website has to do while it’s loading. And second, not all plugins are created equally—poor or outdated plugins can slow down site performance drastically.

The Fix

Evaluate your current plugins to figure out which ones you actually need. Get rid of multiple plugins that perform the same functions, plugins that you’re no longer using, and those that were created more than 5 years ago and have never been updated.

Surprisingly, you can check the performance of your plugins with…another plugin. The P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) shows you how each plugin impacts your WordPress site load time, so you can adjust accordingly.

Your Homepage Has it All – And Then Some

The Problem

In most cases, the homepage is the first one your visitors see. So you might have designed it to show off everything you can, in order to impress new visitors. Widgets are cool, right?

But the more widgets and content you have on the front page, the longer your site takes to load.

The Fix

Keep in mind that a clean design is just as impressive. Don’t stick sharing widgets everywhere on your homepage (save them for the end of your blog posts, where they’ll have the most impact). Pare down and remove any unnecessary widgets or plugins.

You can also speed up load times using the WordPress options to show excerpts instead of full posts, and limit the number of posts per page—5 to 7 is a good number.

Your Stunning Images Take Up Too Much Space

The Problem

The higher the size and quality of an image, the longer it takes to load. If you have amazing graphics and an image or two (or more) with every blog post, your loading time will be slower.

The Fix

There are a few ways to address the image issue. One is with Lazy Load—a process that loads only the images appearing “above the fold,” or on the part of the site a visitor is actually viewing. You can do this automatically with the jQuery Image Lazy Load plugin.

Another is with an image optimizer program like Yahoo!’s Smush.it. You can use the tool right from the site to compact images (without losing quality)—or you can install the WP Smush.It plugin to have it done automatically when you add images to your site.

You’re Using a “Free” Third-Party WordPress Theme

The Problem

Free is the best price for anything, and you may have searched for a free WordPress theme to avoid using the same themes that everyone else has. However, like free movie sites and music downloads, there’s an excellent chance that “free” theme comes with a price tag in the form of spyware or viruses, which do more than slow down your site.

The Fix

Unless you have a really good reason to completely trust the developer of a free theme, only use themes from the official WordPress theme repository. If you want something different, consider investing less than $100 in a premium theme.

Your Host Isn’t the Most

The Problem

If you’re running the WordPress.org platform, you need a Web host for your site. There are free Web hosting providers, and incredibly cheap hosts. Of course, you’re interested in saving money—so you might have gone with the lowest possible price tag.

But a poor Web host can hurt more than your load times.

The Fix

If your Web hosting solution is free or dirt-cheap, consider upgrading to a well known host, which usually runs between N700 per month or N1200 per year. Here’s what to think about when choosing a web hosting company. Follow this link to learn how to choose web hosting company: http://blog.philmorehost.com/how-to-choose-a-hosting-company/

Are you satisfied with how fast your WordPress site loads? Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/5-things-that-make-your-wordpress-site-run-slow-and-how-to-fix-them/
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 7:55pm On Nov 30, 2014
How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

If you have been surfing the web for a while, you have at least error establishing a database connection. Error Establishing a Database Connection is one of those curses that could be caused by many reasons. As a WordPress beginner, this could be awfully frustrating specially when it happened on its own without you changing anything. We ran into this issue yesterday on our own site. It took a little over 20 minutes to detect and fix the problem. While doing the research to find possible causes, we realized that there was no good article that covered everything. In this article, we will show you how to fix the error establishing a database connection in WordPress by compiling a list of solutions all in one place.

Note: Before you make any database changes, make sure you have sufficient backups.

Why do you get this error?

Well in short, you are getting this error because WordPress is unable to establish a database connection. Now the reason why WordPress is unable to establish a database connection can vary. It could be that your database login credentials are wrong or have been changed. It could be that your database server is unresponsive. It could be that your database has been corrupted. In our experience, majority of the times this error happens because of some sort of server error however there could be other factors as well. Lets take a look at how to go about troubleshooting this problem.

Does the problem occur for /wp-admin/ as well?

First thing you should do is to make sure that you are getting the same error on both the front-end of the site, and the back-end of the site (wp-admin). If the error message is the same on both pages “Error establishing a database connection”, then proceed onto the next step. If you are getting a different error on the wp-admin for instance something like “One or more database tables are unavailable. The database may need to be repaired”, then you need to repair your database.

You can do this by adding the following line in your wp-config.php file:

1 define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);
Once you have done that, you can see the settings by visiting this page: http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php

WordPress Database Repair

Remember, the user does not need to be logged in to access this functionality when this define is set. This is because its main intent is to repair a corrupted database, Users can often not login when the database is corrupt. So once you are done repairing and optimizing your database, make sure to remove this from your wp-config.php.

If this repair did not fix the problem, or you are having trouble running the repair then continue reading this article as you might find another solution to work.

Checking the WP-Config file

WP-Config.php is probably the single most important file in your entire WordPress installation. This is where you specify the details for WordPress to connect your database. If you changed your root password, or the database user password, then you will need to change this file as well. First thing you should always check is if everything in your wp-config.php file is the same.

define('DB_NAME', 'database-name');
define('DB_USER', 'database-username');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'database-password');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

Remember your DB_Host value might not always be localhost. Depending on the host, it will be different. For popular hosts like HostGator, BlueHost, Site5, it is localhost. You can find other host values here.

Some folks suggested that they fixed their problem by replacing localhost with the IP. It is common to see this sort of issue when running WordPress on a local server environment. For example on MAMP, the DB_Host value when changed to the IP may seem to work.

define('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1:8889');

IP’s will vary for online web hosting services.

If everything in this file is correct (make sure you check for typos), then it is fair to say that there is something wrong on the server end.

Check your Web Host (MySQL Server)

Often you will notice this Error establishing database connection when your site gets swarmed with a lot of traffic. Basically, your host server just cannot handle the load (specially when you are on shared hosting). Your site will get really slow and for some users even output the error. So the best thing you should do is get on the phone or livechat with your hosting provider and ask them if your MySQL server is responsive.

For those users who want to test if MySQL server is running yourself, you can do a few things. Test other sites on the same server to see if they are having the issue. If they are also getting the same error, then most definitely there is something wrong with your MySQL server. If you do not have any other site on this same hosting account simply go to your cPanel and try to access phpMyAdmin and connect the database. If you can connect, then we need to verify if your database user has sufficient permission. Create a new file called testconnection.php and paste the following code in it:

<?php
$link = mysql_connect('localhost', 'root', 'password');
if (!$link) {
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
echo 'Connected successfully';
mysql_close($link);
?>

Make sure to replace the username and password. If the connected successfully, then it means that your user has sufficient permission, and there is something else that is wrong. Go back to your wp-config file to make sure that everything there is correct (re-scan for typos).

If you cannot connect to the database by going to phpMyAdmin, then you know it is something with your server. It does not necessarily means that your MySQL server is down. It could mean that your user does not have sufficient permission.

In our case, our MySQL server was running. All other sites on the servers were working fine except for WPBeginner. When we tried going to our phpMyAdmin, we ended up getting the error:

#1045 – Access denied for user ‘foo’@’%’ (using password: YES)

We got on the phone with HostGator and their support quickly found the problem. Somehow our user’s permissions were reset. Not sure how that happened, but apparently that was the reason. They went back in and restore the permissions and we were able to get the site back live.

So if you get the access denied error in either connecting to your phpMyAdmin or through testconnection.php results, then you should contact your host right away to get them to fix it.

Solutions that Worked for Others

It is important to note, that these may not work for you. Use at your own risk and make sure that you have sufficient backups if anything goes wrong.

Deepak Mittal said that his client was getting the error that database needs to be repaired. Even after repairing the database, the error did not go away. He tried various things and at the end, the issue was the site url. Apparently that was changed which caused the error to persist. He ran the SQL query by going to phpMyAdmin:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='YOUR_SITE_URL' WHERE option_name='siteurl'
Make sure to replace YOUR_SITE_URL with the actual url example: http://www.wpbeginner.com. The wp_options will be different if you have changed the default WordPress database prefix.

This seemed to fix the issue for him and few others that commented on his post as well.

Sachinum suggested that he was able to connect the database with testconnection.php, so he changed the wp-config.php user to the root user. WordPress started to work perfectly fine. Then he reverted the settings back to the database-user, and it continued to work. He could not figure out what was wrong, but concluded that it was a typo.

Cutewonders suggested that they removed the content of active_plugins in wp_options table and edited the contents of recently_edited. Basically that seemed to fix the problem. Please their full response here .

We read on numerous sources that users simply uploaded a fresh copy of WordPress and it fixed the error.

This is a really frustrating error. What have you tried that seemed to work for you? We would be happy to expand on this resource, so others do not have to waste as much time finding a solution.

Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/how-to-fix-the-error-establishing-a-database-connection-in-wordpress/

1 Like

Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 7:58pm On Nov 30, 2014
How to Migrate From to Self-hosted WordPress

First thing first

Before you start the migration from to self hosted WordPress, you will need to have:

a domain name
a web hosting account and
the WordPress software already installed.
If you do not have any of the three, go to PhilmoreHost and register for a domain name and a webhost account.

Once you have registered for your domain name and web hosting plan, you will receive an email with your login info.

Click on the cPanel link and login with your username and password.

Once you are in the cPanel dashboard, scroll down till you see the Softaculous icon. Click on it.

On the left pane or among the list icons click on the WordPress link.

You will need to install wordpress on your domain, click here to lear how to install wordpress.

You can test it by going to the URL http://your-domain.com/wp-login.php

Migrating from

The next thing that you are going to do is to export all your content from your site.

Login to your account and go to Tools -> Export

migratewp-wp-export


Click the Download Export File button to export the content. It should generate a XML file.

migratewp-export-xml


Importing to the content to your self hosted WordPress site

Login to your self hosted WordPress site and go to Tools -> Import.

Click on the WordPress link.

migratewp-import-xml1


Upload the XML file. It will then prompt you to map the posts author to the new account’s author. Remember to check the box “Download and import file attachments”

migratewp-import-assign-author

Note: If your XML file is more than 2MB in size, you might face problem uploading it to the server (most servers only allow 2MB of file upload). You will have to submit a ticket to your web host and get them to increase the file upload limit.

Redirecting readers from to self hosted WordPress site

You have migrated your content over, don’t you want to migrate your readers over too?

Currently there is no free way to do this. The only way to redirect your readers is to use the domain mapping method which will cost you $9.97 per year.

You can head on to the WordPress support site for detailed instructions to map the site to your domain. In general, you need to:

change the nameserver of your domain to point to the server
Add your domain name to your site in the Settings -> Domains section (This will require you to pay an annual fee of $9.97).
Change the nameserver of your domain back to its original setting.
With that, any readers arriving at your site will be redirected to your self hosted WordPress site. You get to keep your readers as well as your search engine ranking.

That’s it. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them in the comments.

Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/how-to-migrate-from-wordpress-com-to-self-hosted-wordpress/
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 8:01pm On Nov 30, 2014
CMS2CMS: Automated Joomla to WordPress Migration

Migrate your website content from Joomla to WordPress easily and automatedly in just a few simple steps.

The following content items can be migrated from Joomla to WordPress with CMS2CMS

articles
pages
images (as an option)
categories
tags
users
internal links
comments
Supported Joomla versions: 1.5.x, 1.6.x, 1.7.x, 2.5.x, 3.x Supported WordPress versions:3.x (new software versions are constantly being added).

Features of Automated Migration

easy – no need for coding skills to complete it.
fast – 15 minutes on average, depending on the size of Joomla website.
free Demo available – in order to see it in action.
live chat support – you get instant answers to any questions, no need to search for support on forums.
Additional Migration Options

opportunity to form internal URLs according to SEO URL structure on WordPress website.
301 redirects from Joomla URLs to WordPress URLs
clear WordPress data before migration
Additional Supported Modules

Jcomments – migration of comments to WordPress directly
Joomla sh404SEF – migration of meta descriptions and keywords to WordPress SEO by Yoast
Phoca Gallery – migration of images and galleries to NextGen Gallery.
Note. This plugin installs connection bridge on WordPress website, which is necessary for data exchange between Joomla and WordPress websites. After activation, you’ll be redirected to CMS2CMS website in order to complete the migration.

Website design (styles, themes) isn’t migrated.

Steps to Take before Migration

Install WordPress and make sure that Joomla and WordPress websites are available online.
Have Joomla website FTP access details at hand (host, username, password) – you use them to install connection bridge on Joomla website.
Set up custom URL structure for WordPress (it should be set before the migration for internal links to work correctly, if you change them after migration, site navigation will be broken).
Install WordPress plugins supported by CMS2CMS (if you want to migrate metadata or image galleries).

Visit http://blog.philmorehost.com/cms2cms-automated-joomla-to-wordpress-migration/ to download the migration plugin.
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 8:06pm On Nov 30, 2014
How To Move WordPress Site From One Host To Another In less than 5 Minutes

Easiest method to move your website or blog from one host to another.

How to move WordPress site from Hostgator, Bluehost, web4africa, lagoshost, 9jahosters, godaddy,namecheap to www.Philmorehost.com in few minutes?

Moving a blog from one hosting provider to another is not that difficult of a task, but changing domains in the process can be a headache. There are six main steps, which this article will walk you through:

Prep your old site
Prep your new environment
Work on a local copy of your site
Install old files in new environment
“Shut down” old site
Post production work
There is a bit of work that you need to do for this so it’s recommended that you read through this post fully first before you start.

1. Login to your cPanel

2. Click on File Manager and access your site and select Wp-Content folder.

3. Compress Wp-content folder. You can click on Compress button on the toolbar at the top.

4. Now select Wp-content.zip file and download it to your system by clicking on Download button on the toolbar.

5. Now comes the database part. Backup your database either using any wordpress plugin or from PhpMyAdmin in Cpanel.

6. Login to PhpMyAdmin and select the database related to your website. Click on Export and download the sql file to your system.

7. Now you have Wp-content.zip and sql (database) files ready. Here completes the Hostgator, Bluehost, 9jahosters, or godaddy part or source phase. Now let’s move to the destination host (PhilmoreHost / PH) to where we are shifting our site. Before that we need to point Nameservers to PhilmoreHost in your domain settings.

8. Login to domain settings and change Name servers.

9. If you intend to use an Addon Domain, Login to your cPanel.

10. Click on Addon Domains under Domains Section.

addon

11. Mention your site name in step 1 as shown in the image below. It starts verifying your domain. Sometimes DNS propagation takes time to reflect changes and verify the domain. Sometimes it may instantly verify but few times may take time. Don’t touch Step2 , step3. Now create a directory name in Step4. Finally click on Adddomain. These steps vary depending on the host.



addon-domains212. Now navigate to your Cpanel again and click on FTP in the Files Section.

unlimited-ftp

13. In the UFTP window, select Wp-content.zip file in the left panel. Select and open the directory you created in the right panel. Now click on Right arrow between the panels. The file will be transferred to your cpanel.

uftp

14. Now back to your cPanel and install WordPress on the domain. We are not going deep into how to install WordPress here. This will create an empty wordpress site. Don’t worry, your site will get all the settings and articles in few minutes.

15. Click on File Manager in Cpanel, navigate to wp-content folder in your site directory (public_html/yoursitedirectory) and rename it to wp-content.old

16. Now select the wp-content.zip file, click on Extract button on the toolbar. Wp-content will be extracted and placed in your directory. Ex: public_html/yoursitedirectory/wp-content

17. Access PhpMyAdmin from the Cpanel of PhilmoreHost. Create a database by giving some name (remember this database name) and select the database. Click on Import button. Now select the sql file saved in your system. So your database file will be imported. Go to mysql database and after creating db assign the user in wp-config.php file.

18. Open Wpconfig.php file in public_html/yoursitedirectory and make the following changes.

Find out the line that is similar to” define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘………………………….’); “
Just comment that line by typing // before the line.
Now add the line below the commented line
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘Your_database_name_here’);
Now find “$table_prefix” and ensure the prefix of the tables matches the prefix in your database tables in PhpMyAdmin In PhilmoreHost the prefix is wp_ and so it should be:
$table_prefix = ‘wp_’;
Save the file.
This prefix changes from one host to another.

Bingo! you are done with all the steps. Check your website or blog and also try to login with all the same credentials that you used to.

Again, this is the summary of what we did

1. Compress wp-content in source (Hostgator, Bluehost, 9jahosters, godaddy). Download the zip file.
2. Backup the database and download it.
3. Change Name servers in your domain. Add domain in destination hosting (PhilmoreHost) and verify it. Create directory under public_html
4. Install WordPress on your domain in PH. Access File Manager for your domain, rename existing wp-content as wp-content.old and unzip or extract the wp-content file.
5. Create database in PH and import sql file already downloaded in step2.
6. Change wp-config.php settings. That’s it.
The only time taking process is downloading and uploading of zip file if it is a large one. We used special internet connection of 8MBPS and it took just 2 minutes to download 650 mb file and 20 mins to upload. Entire process completed in 40 mins to shift one of our existing blogs from 9jahosters and lagoshost to www.PhilmoreHost.com . If you have any doubts do ask them in the comments section or contact support@philmorehost.com

Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/move-wordpress-site-one-host-another-inless-5-minutes/
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 8:10pm On Nov 30, 2014
Simple Troubleshooting Steps for the WordPress White Screen of Death

Something is wrong with your site, and more than likely you possess the power to identify and possibly even fix it. You just need to ask yourself these questions and follow these steps.

Question #1: Are You A Synthesis Customer?

If so, I have some great news for you.

Troubleshooting step: Log into your Customer Portal and view recent errors.

Synthesis provides you with an easily accessible log of recent errors that your site has experienced. This often allows you to immediately diagnose the source of your white screen issue.

Here are the detailed steps for accessing the log errors:

Log in to your Customer Portal.
If you have multiple sites, click into whichever one is white screening.
Underneath all of your FTP, PHPMyAdmin, and other info, you’ll see a row for “Server Info” with a blue link that says “View.” Click it.
A screen will pop up showing any recent errors thrown by your site.
The log error(s), if you have any, may look like hieroglyphics to you. That’s okay. If so, just read through the errors and see if you see a URL that ends in or contains the following:

functions.php
“plugins” – the URL will point to a specific plugin path, which may be the one causing the issue.
“themes” – the URL will point to a specific path within the theme, possibly the file causing the issue.
If it’s a functions.php issue and you recently edited your functions.php file, revert back to the pre-edit or default state.

If it’s a plugin issue, and you see one plugin path coming up over and over again in the logs, deactivate the offending plugin. This will get your site back up and running. If you can’t narrow it down to one plugin, or you need help deactivating a plugin when you can’t access your site, scroll down to “Is It a Plugin Issue?”

If you see theme paths in the log errors, scroll down to “Is It a Theme Issue?”

Question #2: Did you recently install, update, or otherwise touch a plugin?

The vast majority of White Screen of Death cases that I’ve seen come into our help desk end up being plugin related. If you were working with a specific plugin right before the White Screen of Death appeared, it is likely that isolating the issue will be easy for you.

Troubleshooting step: Deactivate the plugin you were just working with.

Simple right? If that plugin was indeed the issue, then your site should come right back up. Whew. At that point, you can then figure out what the issue with the plugin might be:

If you were editing the plugin, revert to the original code.
If you updated the plugin and it caused an issue, contact the plugin developer.
If you were installing the plugin for the first time, check to see if it is compatible with your version of WordPress (which is hopefully the most current one).
Question #3: Were you recently working with your active theme’s functions.php file?

The other usual suspect when it comes to White Screen of Death cases is edits to the functions.php file.

Troubleshooting step: Revert to the pre-edit (or original) functions.php file.

Your site will come back up if this was the issue.

On a related note, here is a word to the wise regarding editing your functions.php file … or any WordPress file for that matter: make code changes in a text editor as opposed to the WordPress dashboard!

With a text editor, you have the option of clicking Edit – Undo to quickly remove changes one by one. When the White Screen of Death is costing you page views, troubleshooting speed is of the essence. You cannot Edit – Undo in the WordPress dashboard, so not only is there no quick way to revert change by change, but if you make extensive changes and cannot remember them all you’ll just have to revert to the original and start from scratch.

Question #4: Did you answer “No” to questions 1, 2, and 3?

So maybe you weren't just working with a specific plugin or your theme’s functions.php file, but the White Screen of Death took hold of your site anyway. This happens. Even if you don’t have an immediate guess as to the specific source of the problem, you can still move forward knowing there is a decent chance that it’s somehow plugin or theme related.

But how do you isolate the issue?


Is It a Plugin Issue?

Troubleshooting step: Rename your plugins folder to “_plugins” and then check your site.

The best way to accomplish this is via FTP. If you are looking for a good FTP client, you can check out Transmit (Paid) or Cyberduck (Free).

Renaming the plugins folder will automatically deactivate all of the plugins on your site. You shouldn’t lose any settings upon reactivating the plugins (I never have), but you never know. Understand that this is a risk, but it’s one worth taking if no one can access your content.

Once you’ve made the filename change, reload your site. If you still get the White Screen of Death, move on. It’s obviously not a plugin issue.

But if your site comes back up, then you know there is a plugin issue. Now you just need to isolate which plugin it is. To do this, go to your dashboard and navigate to the plugins page. You’ll notice that all of the plugins are visible but deactivated. Start reactivating them one by one. After each activation, reload the site. At some point it will white screen again, and then you’ll know that the last plugin you activated is the culprit.

At that point, you can activate the rest of the plugins, make sure the site is still up, and then dig into what the specific issue is with the problem plugin.

So what do you do if it is not a plugin issue?


Is It a Theme Issue?

Troubleshooting step: Rename your themes folder to “_themes” and then check your site.

The best way to accomplish this is also via FTP.

Renaming the themes folder will automatically deactivate your current theme and replace it with the WordPress default theme. You shouldn’t lose any settings or widgets upon reactivating the themes folder (I never have), but you never know. Understand that this is a risk, but again, it’s one worth taking if no one can access your content.

Once you’ve made the change to the themes file, reload your site. If you still get the White Screen of Death, move on. It’s obviously not a theme issue either. At this point, contact your developer or hosting provider. Your white screen issue is more complicated than most.

But if your site comes back up with the themes folder changed (you’ll see your content with the WP default theme), then you know there is an issue with your previously active theme. You can either dig into it yourself or contact your developer for assistance.

At this point, if you have another theme that you want to use instead of the WP default, activate it while working on the issues with your main theme. Unless this theme has an issue as well, your site should display fine with it.

Question #5: Is your site still white screening after all of this?

If yes, get help.

It’s at this point you’ll definitely want to pull your developer and your host into the conversation. Let them know all of the troubleshooting steps you’ve already taken and give them any other pertinent information you’ve gleaned. They’ll appreciate it, and it will prevent them from wasting time doing work you’ve already done.

Then hopefully you can beat the White Screen of Death together in short order.

Article curl from http://blog.philmorehost.com/simple-troubleshooting-steps-for-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death/
Re: Wordpress Tutorial On Nairaland by pmictltd(m): 8:13pm On Nov 30, 2014
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