Wordpress Errors: A How to Guide to Detect and Fix Them

WordPress is a complete content management system providing a unique platform for your blogging websites. But it has got some inherent issues which might generate errors. These errors might create a panic in you but the essential thing is that they are not singular in nature. Probably there are innumerable numbers of user who already has faced the issue that is bugging you and a proper solution to tackle that particular issue has already been developed and tested.

At WPBeginner, we have articulated different tutorials to solve several WordPress errors. The following article briefly illustrates 14 most commonly faced WordPress errors and how to fix them.
Important: We strongly recommend you to have a scheduled backup system like BackupBuddy. This will automatically keep a backup of your WordPress site. Or else, you can also create Backup manually. We advise you to kindly contact with your WordPress hosting company, in case you fail to resolve any issue. 

1. Fix the Syntax Error in WordPress: While trying to add code snippets into WordPress and missing something accidentally or entering code having incorrect syntax will generate this error.

Parse error - syntax error, unexpected $end in /public_html/site1/wp-content/themes/my-theme/functions.php on line xxx

2. Fix the Internal Server Error in WordPress: “Internal Server Error” or “500 Internal Server Error” is another very common error that users may find in WordPress. This problem is a little bit trickier because the server cannot identify the root cause of the error and the user will have to figure it out. 

3. Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress: This error clearly states that the website is unable to link to the database. This error is usually generated due to incorrect entering or modification of database credentials. This error is a serious one, as it can even corrupt your entire database. 

4. Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death: White Screen of Death is the whitening of the entire website or certain parts of it is truly a puzzling error that you may face. Without any clue of how and where to resolve this issue, it can become very frustrating for a user. Generally it occurs when a script exhausts PHP memory limit or due to a configuration of the server.

5. Fix WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error: When a user visits a particular post on their site it returns an error message “404-page not found” but he can access all the other sections including the admin part. This is the classic symptom of this problem and generally arises due to errors in the permalink settings of WordPress.

6. Fix the Sidebar below Content Error in WordPress: Sidebar appearing below the content is a major issue that is faced by the WordPress beginners. Disproportionate width in CSS or improper breaking of the theme layout due to accidentally forget to close an HTML div tag or add an extra closing div, while adding code snippets.

7. Fix White Text and Missing Buttons in WordPress Visual Editor: Due to JAVA Script not functioning in the user’s admin area and missing or corrupt TinyMCE files, buttons from the WordPress visual editor disappears or white spaces comes in place of that. Sometimes the error is caused by plugin failures or the clash of plugins related to the TinyMCE files.

8. Repair WordPress Memory Exhausted Error: This error is related to the PHP memory and is often indicated by the White Screen of Death or displayed messages like

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2348617 bytes) in /home/username/public_html/site1/wp-includes/plugin.php on line xxx

This error happens due to exhaustion of allocated memory owing to the scripts and plugins.

9. Locked Out of WordPress Admin: Locked out of the WordPress Admin(wp-admin) can be a very serious problem as it indicates that either you are entering wrong password or some code/plugin in trying to make changes in the admin section. It can also indicate that your WordPress site has been hacked.

10. Fix WordPress Login Page Refreshing and Redirecting Issue: If you are attempting to enter into the WordPress dashboard by login into the website but, you are repeatedly being redirected back to the login page.

It generally happens due to incorrect values of the site and home URL. Find the solution of this problem here.

11. Fix Image Upload Issue in WordPress: Major symptoms of this problem are sudden disappearance of all the images from the website and being replaced by breaking image thumbnails. All the files in the media library appear to be broken and uploading of any new image will result in an error. Different factors are responsible and a particular solution must be found out.

12. Fix Common Image Issues on WordPress: Familiarizing yourself with how WordPress handles media files can be a tricky problem itself. Aligning images, resize and cropping images, or displaying them in different formats can be very confusing and difficult for a novice. It should be kept in mind that this is not an error but just a matter of practice.

13. Fix “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” Error in WordPress: Nonce is special security attributes used for specific URLs only related to admin based operations. But sometimes a plugin or a theme due to some failure may start to use Nonce inappropriately, which results in the User sees the message as an apparent error.

14. Fix Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance Error in WordPress: This error is generally caused by interrupting or unfinished updates in WordPress. During the updating process your website goes into a maintenance mode and if sudden interruption occurs it remains in that mode. This causes a lockdown situation where both admin and users are restricted to operate the website.

For all of the above problems and errors, you should Hire WordPress Developer or contact any WordPress Development company. WPGeeks Ltd. offers such services for their clients, which not only include customization and custom development but also PSD to WordPress Theme conversion and Reliable HTML to WordPress Conversion services.

We are publishing this post with a hope that it will definitely help you to solve some of the critical issues that you may face while using WordPress. It will be our pleasure to know from you about more issues that is beyond the context of this article. We will definitely try our level best to cover it and provide a solution.

Read More

12 Awesome Tools = WordPress - Spam Comments

WordPress being a weblog and not necessarily an eCommerce tool, a fabulous CMS but still has a threat to spam because of its huge installed base. But thankfully with advent of technologies and with time, several ways have come up to combat this problem in WordPress. In this article, we discuss below some of the best tips and tools to overcome this spam problem in WordPress.

• Don’t follow Comment Links

Bloggers put plugins in the comment area which has nofollow attribute for the author links, hoping these links to encourage more users to leave comments or feedback. This results to a large number of spam comments. It’s always a bad idea to use plugins that share link via comments. The quality of the blog comes into threat due to such mistakes.

• Use Cookies

Install Cookies for Comments plugins. This plugin sends users a stylesheet or image files whenever they access a page with comment form. This technique works as most spams are automated scripts and they don’t download any image or stylesheet. Cookies protect our sites from such spams in comment form and identify them as legit users.

• Activate Akismet

Akismet is one of the most valuable plugin for WordPress and is pre installed. Only activation is necessary using an API key. Without this, spam control in WordPress is almost impossible. Only drawback is that it is too sensitive and sometimes good comments can also be filtered as spam, but no worry. That’s recoverable.

• Add CAPTCHA Verification

Using CAPTCHA plugin is a very common tactics nowadays. One can also enable RECAPTCHA challenge on comment form. RECAPTCHA shows an image containing characters can be alpha numeric and the user needs them to type to prove them that they are human. Only drawback of captcha is that it does nothing to prevent sites from manually submitted spam comments.

• Use Honeypot

Honeypot technology is an effective method to trick spam bots. What one needs to do is to install and activate Spam Fighter. Upon activation, this will result in creating a hidden form in your comments area which is only visible to bots. Since spam bots are usually programmed to fill all fields in a form. If you are still struggling to understand such tools then you can Hire WordPress Developer from WPGeeks who will get things done for you.

• Comment Form should not contain Website URL field

URL field in comment form attracts spammers as easy mode of spamming. These comments usually contain a line of total irrelevance like any alpha numeric name etc. Removing the URL field from comment form will discourage such nuisance on website.

• Disable HTML

Disable HTML in comments to discourage links in comments. Use Peter’s Literal comments plugin by installing and activating it. Doing so will pass all HTML through WordPress filters.

• Disable Comments on Media attachment

Turn off comments on media attachments. WordPress automatically creates image attachment pages where users can see an image and leave a comment. If images are linked to the attachment page, then after some time, one will have lots of image attachment pages with comments enabled to them.

• Disable Trackbacks

A big portion of spam comment is trackbacks. One would find it in the default article settings under Discussion Settings. One can disable trackback on entire blog or on some post.

• Use Less annoying Captcha

Users find Captcha annoying and frustrating. Better use a simple maths problem, like addition etc to prove user as human. Install and activate Maths Quiz plugin.  The plugin allows one to choose whether you want a simple plain text quiz or an image based maths quiz.

• Switch off Comments

The Discussion Settings contain another section called Default article settings. If the checkbox “Allow people to post comments on new articles“ is unchecked, comments on your WordPress site can’t be made. As such no spam can attack.

• Turn off Comment on old Posts

WordPress enables you to set the comment closure deadline. Check the box next to the option “Automatically close comments on article older than“ under other comments settings and old posts comments can be turned off to save them from comment spams.

Read More