Although WordPress is a stable and reliable platform to build your website on, there are occasions where you may stumble across a few problems. Like with every form of technology, things can go a little haywire from time to time.
We’ve identified 6 common WordPress issues that you may face and the reasons behind them.
1. The white screen of death
Perhaps the scariest issue of them all, the white screen of death is when you access your website and you see nothing but a blank page. Most of the time, this happens because a theme or plugin is incompatible with another plugin.
To find out whether a plugin is responsible, you need to isolate your plugins’ directory and then activate the plugin files one by one to check which is causing the problem. Once the incriminated plugin gets disabled, your website should be back up and running.
2. Connection timed out
This error appears when your server is overloaded and your website is trying to do more than it can manage. You may need to increase your memory limit. However, if you are on a shared host, there may be limitations beyond a certain point.
Another place to look is with your plugins or theme. Again, deactivating your plugins is the quickest way to see whether they are responsible for the error. You can then re-active them one by one to see which is causing the issue. If the plugins aren’t the problem, you could try changing your theme to the default WP theme to see if that fixes the error.
3. Images don’t scale properly
One of the most frustrating things about WordPress is when the images you want to use won’t scale properly or they don’t align as you want them to.
Although most WordPress themes allow you to align images via the WordPress editor, some may not let you position them so that they float to the left or right. If this happens, there may be a lack of styling in the CSS. In this case, you will need to edit the code to fix the issue.
4. Internal server error
The most common cause of an Internal Server Error message is a corrupt .htaccess file. Or it could be down to a conflicting plugin or theme. You will need FTP access on your server to access the .htaccess file. Once the file has been located you can rename the file and then generate a new .htaccess file if that turns out to be the issue.
You could also try deactivating and reactivating your plugins and themes to see if that removes the error or, if that still doesn’t work, try increasing the PHP Memory Limit.
5. Locked out of admin error
If you forget the password or login name to your WordPress website you may find yourself locked out of your account. This can become a bigger problem if, for some reason, your recovery email doesn’t work.
If you can’t get into the backend anymore, you can reset your password inside the database via PhpMyAdmin. Once you’ve found your username, delete whatever is written in the field called user_pass and write your new password. You should now be able to get back into your site.
6. Comment spam
As a website owner, it’s great to see a growth in incoming traffic, but the downside is that when your site begins to gain traction, the number of spam comments it receives also increases. Most of the spam comments come from automated spam bots and if you don’t moderate them you’ll find it can reduce your SEO score and significantly slow down your site.
The best way to stop comment spam is to configure your settings so that you have to manually approve each comment. Comments can also be marked as spam automatically if they contain any banned words you specify in your blacklist. You can read more about spam comment cleansing here.
If you need emergency WordPress help to get your website back up and running, get in touch with WP Tech Support. Our team of WordPress developers are available 24/7 and will quickly diagnose the problem and figure out the best way to get your website back on track. Start your 30 day free trial today with a standard or pro plan.