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Why does my website give a white screen (WSOD)?

Whenever you get a white screen, most of the times it has to do with a PHP error in the website code. To solve these issues it can help to see the error message in full, instead of a white error screen, white screen of death or WSOD.

Steps to enable display_errors on Shared servers

The first step in debugging is to find out which PHP error you’re getting. To check this out, you need to turn on a PHP setting in cPanel; display_errors.

Step 1: Log in to cPanel. 

Step 2: Under Software, click Select PHP Version.

Select PHP version

Step 3: Click Switch To PHP Options. If your PHP version is set to native this option is not usable. If this is the case, select a different PHP version and click Set as current.

Switch to php options

Step 4: Tick the box next to display_errors.

display_errors

Step 5: Visit the website.

Now you have enabled the display_errors option you can visit the site again, and you should see a PHP error. Based on this error you can decide if this is something you can figure out, or if you are going to restore a backup.

Also readHow do I restore a backup of my website with AutoBackup?

Steps if no errors are visible

If you don’t see any errors when turning on display_errors, something in your website might overrule the PHP setting of cPanel. You can try putting the following lines of code in your index.php between the <?php tags:

error_reporting(E_ALL);

ini_set(‘display_errors’, TRUE);

ini_set(‘display_startup_errors’, TRUE);

This overrules the PHP settings of your website and you should see the errors on your website.

 

Steps to enable log_errors on Shared servers

Sometimes it is not desirable to enable display_errors on your website. For example, if you do not want to show the PHP errors to your visitors. The log_errors option in cPanel is a good alternative, as the errors are stored in a log file rather than shown to the visitors.

Step 1: Log in on cPanel

Step 2: Under Software, click Select PHP version.

Select PHP version

Step 3: Click Switch to PHP options. If your PHP version is set to native this option is not usable. If this is the case, select a different PHP version and click Set as current.

Switch to PHP options

Step 4: Tick the box next to log_errors. This option is enabled by default.

Log_errors

Step 5: Go back to the main screen of cPanel.

Step 6: Under the Files category, click File Manager.

File manager

Step 7: Go to the document root of your domain. For the main domain of your package this is the public_html folder.

Step 8: Open the error_log file by right clicking and clicking Edit.

You will see the PHP errors in chronological order here.

 

Steps to enable display_errors on Cloud Servers

Step 1: Log in to the cPanel account of your customer.

Step 2: Click option MultiPHP INI Editor under the Software category.

MultiPHP INI editor

Step 3: Select the domain where you want to enable the display_error option on.

Select a domain

Step 4: Enable display_errors.

Enable display errors

Step 5: Click Apply.

Apply

Step 6: Go to the website.

Now you have enabled the display_errors option you can visit the site again, and you should see a PHP error. 

 

Steps to enable log_errors on Cloud Servers

By default log_errors are enabled on Cloud servers too. If this is the case on your Cloud, you can skip steps 1 through 5. If the error_log is empty you could follow these steps to verify log_errors is enabled.

Important: With these settings you enable log_errors for your full Cloud, for the PHP version you select in step 3.

Step 1: Log in to WHM.

Step 2: Go to MultiPHP INI Editor under the Software category.

MultiPHP INI Editor

Step 3: Go to the Editor Mode and select the PHP version you want to change the log_errors setting on.

Edit the INI settings by going to Editor mode

Step 4: Go to the line where log_errors = Off is shown and change this to log_errors = On. Use CTRL-F on Windows to search on a page, or Command-F on MacOS to search on a page. There are multiple lines containing log_errors, the line we are looking to change is shown in the example.

log_errors = off

Step 5: Click Save.

Save

Step 6: Go to the website, if there are PHP errors in the website, this should generate a error_log entry.

Step 7: Log in to the cPanel account of the customer.

Step 8: Click on File Manager under the Files category.

File Manager

Step 9: Go to the document root of the domain. For the main domain of the package, this is the public_html folder.

Step 10: Open the error_log file by right clicking and clicking Edit.

You should see the PHP errors in chronological order. 

 

 

This knowledgebase article was last updated on: 22 August 2019

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