Fix the PHP white screen of death
A completely blank white page from a PHP site — no error, no content — is the classic “white screen of death.” It means PHP hit a fatal error and error display is off, so you see nothing. The fix is to find the hidden error.
Step 1: read the error log
The error is being logged even though it’s not shown. Check the PHP/site error
log via the panel or the
web terminal. For Laravel, look at
storage/logs/laravel.log. The last fatal error is your answer.
Step 2: temporarily turn on error display
On a staging copy (not production), enable display to see the error in the browser:
- Plain PHP — in the site’s php.ini:
display_errors = On(turn it off again when done). - WordPress — in
wp-config.php:define('WP_DEBUG', true); - Laravel — in
.env:APP_DEBUG=true(never leave this on in production).
Common causes & fixes
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| Out of memory | raise memory_limit (e.g. 256M) in php.ini |
| PHP version mismatch | the app needs a different PHP version — switch it per-site |
| A bad plugin/theme (WP) | rename its folder to disable it, then reload |
| Syntax error after an edit | the log names the file and line — fix it |
| Missing extension | the log says which; install it |
| File permissions | → fix permission errors |
Step 3: fix, then turn debug back off
Once the site loads, turn off display_errors / WP_DEBUG / APP_DEBUG —
leaving errors visible in production leaks information to attackers.
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