White Screen of Death (WSoD)

White Screen of Death (WSoD) is an error message encountered on web pages, especially programmed using WordPress. A WSoD occurs when a website cannot be displayed and it instead displays a blank white screen. This is often indicative of an issue related to the particular website, usually involving a corrupted plugin or theme.

WSoD does not necessarily indicate a fault in the website’s code and may be caused by an issue with the hosting file, which can contain incompatible code such as older PHP versions, or a local service crash, such as PHP, Apache, or MySQL.

However, the most common source of WSoD is from a missing or corrupt file in the root folder of a website. Such files are frequently caused by the activation of a new plugin that is either incompatible with the existing website files, or is corrupt.

A WSoD can be resolved by restoring the website to a previous version prior to the error. This can be done manually by the website owner, or through the use of specialized plugins that help with the restoration process.

The White Screen of Death can also be caused by a user-level problem. For instance, if a page is edited incorrectly, or if a plugin is installed incorrectly, this can cause the website to crash and consequently display a WSoD.

In some cases, the WSoD can be caused by a virus or malicious scripts. It is essential that the website is secured regularly to prevent potential attacks from malicious actors.

White Screen of Death is a common issue that all webmasters should be aware of, and know how to resolve in order to prevent further disruption to the website.