Are you having difficulties with your WordPress website? It may be because of some error in the PHP code used to build the website. It is a rising issue that many users have come across, and in this article, you will get to know everything related to this issue and how to fix it.
It’s essential to prepare for any situation regarding website maintenance. That’s why having automated processes in place, and backups of your site is so important. If you notice errors on your website, contact support as soon as possible.
When you see the site is experiencing Technical Difficulties message in WordPress, it means that the site is experiencing some technical difficulties. Sometimes there are outages beyond our control, and we need to update everyone as soon as possible with an ETA for when things will return to normal.
What Are the Technical Difficulties in WordPress?
A few particularly frustrating issues with WordPress can altogether disable your site but don’t provide much guidance about what’s causing the problem. “The site is experiencing technical difficulties.” is one such issue; this means that both the frontend and backend of your website will be unavailable.
You should be able to fix the problem by following the troubleshooting steps. This article aims to describe how and where you might encounter this WordPress error.
Since WordPress uses the PHP programming language, the website may crash if there is an issue with the code. Before WordPress 5.2, a PHP error would result in a blank white screen which would cause a lot of panic for users.
However, an error message gets displayed instead; “The site is experiencing technical difficulties” or “The site is experiencing technical difficulties. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions” or “There has been a critical error on this website.”
The most common cause of ‘The Site Is Experiencing Technical Difficulties‘ in WordPress is a plugin conflict. An example of this may be because you have copied and pasted code snippets onto your WordPress website or even an error between the custom code and the website theme.
To troubleshoot plugin conflicts, you can try to reinstall the plugins one at a time and check for errors after each installation. You can also search for plugin conflicts online.
How Can You Fix Technical Difficulties in WordPress?
If you’re experiencing any issues with your WordPress site, it’s essential to remove any blockages in your plugins or themes. Once everything is clean, make sure to test your website to see if the issue is still there or not.
If all goes well, follow the instructions provided by your plugin or theme developer to remove any blockages. By following these simple steps, you’ll ensure that all the content on your site is accessible and working correctly.
WordPress fatal errors make you can not access the backend of your site, so you can’t deactivate the extension that’s causing the issue. Depending on whether you have access to a recovery mode link, you can work around this limitation in two ways.
Let’s move on to how you may fix technical difficulties in WordPress. You can use two methods. Both of these will be explained below.
Method 1: Fixing the Technical Difficulties Error by Using Recovery Mode
Check Email for Fatal Error Notifications
Technical errors cause panic and distress; however, luckily, WordPress sends an email in such cases with full details of the error to the admin’s email address. The email will consist of two essential pieces of information, which will be:
- The name of the plugin/theme which is causing the error.
- A link to put the website into recovery mode.
If you are using a WordPress auto-installer or on Bluehost, the admin email address will probably be the same as the WordPress hosting account; however, remember to check your spam folder.
Click on the link to put the website into recovery mode, which will lead you to the WordPress admin page. Here you will have to log in, after which you will see a message about the error and how to fix it on your dashboard.
There will be a link in the letter to correct the mistake, after which you can deactivate the plugins which are causing the error. After which, you can exit recovery mode in the admin bar.
Suppose you have access to the recovery mode link. In that case, you can log in with your credentials if the administrator of the website allows you to send the recovery mode link to another user, which will enable them to troubleshoot the error.
After the login, you can go to the plugin’s screen and deactivate the theme causing the error.
You should note that while you’re in recovery mode, the fatal error will continue to appear for other users and visitors of your site. The only person who can access the website will be the one who logged in via the recovery mode link.
Method 2: Fixing the Technical Difficulties Error Manually
Step 1: Troubleshoot for a Plugin or Theme Conflict
If you are not the site’s admin, if the error message does not mention the email, you can troubleshoot the errors using FTP which stands for Transfer Protocol.
Plugins that are faulty or conflicting may cause technical difficulties or errors. Simply disabling the plugin will solve the problem.
For this step, you need to log into your website’s server using an FTP client like FileZilla, and then you must navigate to wp-content and access the plugins. You can rename the plugin causing the error; it will most likely be the recently added plugin.
You can then rename the folder of the plugin to “plugin-name-deactivated.” or something similar. Now you can access the website usually.
Step 2: Deactivate All WordPress Plugins
If you are still facing errors, you will need to deactivate all WordPress plugins. You will need to use your FTP client to connect to your WordPress website the same way before and then navigate towards the wp-content folder and into the plugins folder. You can then rename the plugins folder into something like “plugins-deactivated.”
Check back into your site to see if the technical difficulties still exist. If it’s fixed, you need to go back to the plugins folder and reactivate each plugin to check which one is causing the error.
Users should now be able to reassess your site after the problematic extensions are inactive. For extra measures, you can:
- Remove the extensions if they aren’t necessary for your site’s core functionality.
- Delete the plugin and replace the theme if they are conflicting.
- It may be possible to modify the extension’s code by contacting the plugin or theme developer. After updating and activating the new version, the conflict should be resolved.
- By editing the tool’s code, you can resolve the conflict yourself and reactivate it.
If the error is not caused by deactivating all the plugins, then it means that a plugin did not drive the mistake; here, you can change the folder name back to plugins and move on to the next step.
Step 3: View Your Server Error Log
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems globally and with good reason. It’s easy to use, flexible, and customizable. However, ensuring that your server is configured correctly and compliant with WordPress standards is essential for optimizing performance and preventing security breaches.
To do this, you should monitor logs and performance metrics regularly. If you encounter any issues, troubleshoot them using the available tools.
If the debug mode does not give off any suspicious activity or error messages, you can check into your server’s error log, which you can access through your hosting account. After this, you can check the issues causing the error and troubleshoot them as required.
Step 4: Switch to the Default Theme
If a plugin does not cause the error, then it may be the case that your website WordPress theme is causing the error.
You will need to replace your current Websites theme with a default theme for this step. You will need to connect to your website using an FTP client and access the themes folder from wp-content. You can then download your current theme onto your computer and delete it from your website by renaming it.
WordPress will now operate using the default WordPress theme downloaded, and if you do not have a default theme, you can download it using FTP. If the errors are no more, the piece was causing the issue; however, if not, don’t panic; there are still a few more steps left.
Step 5: Enable WordPress Debug Mode
WordPress debug mode Is a built-in troubleshooting feature that will navigate all the PHP errors. Using FTP, you can use this feature by accessing the wp-config.php file and then typing:
After this, you can save and re-upload the file and refresh your website page. You can then navigate the errors displayed and turn off the debug mode again by writing:
define( 'WP_DEBUG', false );Step 6: Reinstall WordPress
At this stage, you are probably just tired of seeing the errors and may want a quick and easy way out; this could have been happening due to a corrupt WordPress core file or maybe some malware.
For this case, go to the WordPress.org website and download a new copy of WordPress onto your computer. After installation, you can overwrite the new folders to replace the old ones.
The error caused by a corrupt file or malware no longer exists now.
Step 7: Ensure You Are Running a Supported Version of PHP
If the website keeps causing errors, it may be good to check the PHP version it is running on and if it’s supported since WordPress 5.0 and newer versions do not help old PHP versions anymore.
However, PHP does not support WordPress versions older than 6.0. Hence you can log into your hosting account and go to the site section from your dashboard to check the PHP version of your website.
If the version is outdated, you can download the latest version from the hosting website or manually from the PHP site.
It’s essential to keep your website up to date, ensure it runs smoothly, and install any new features and newly released updates. Once you install the update, make sure to activate it so that the changes take effect on your website.
You can find updates in several ways – by checking for updates on the blog or website management panel, via email, or even by scanning the QR code on the website. If you do not see any updates, it might be time to check for updates.
Contact Your Hosting Provider
If you’ve tried all the steps above and are still stuck, it may be good to ask for some assistance. You can contact your WordPress hosting provider and ask them to look at the error and what to do to resolve it.
The technical support provided by most providers is excellent and might be able to solve your issue. It may be possible for them to check the server error logs or restore a backup of your WordPress site. You’ll be advised how they can help you and what you should do next.
Conclusion
Errors are something that comes and goes. Your website needs to remain error-free as it may cause trouble for its users. Until the issue is still there, no user will be able to access the website.
You can solve this issue in about eight steps, excluding the step of contacting your hosting provider. You can always choose to save time, effort, and cost while maximizing your website’s performance by:
- Receiving help from hosting experts in WordPress
- Cloudflare Enterprise integration.
- Global audience reaches.
- Using built-in Performance monitoring in applications.
It is vital to remain calm and try your best to resolve the issues, and if the problem persists, seek the necessary help. We hope that this article helped you in solving technical difficulties.
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