How to Fix “There Has Been a Critical Error on This Website” in WordPress

Check the Recovery Mode Email from WordPress

When WordPress detects a fatal error, it automatically sends an email to your admin address. This is your first and fastest route to a fix. Check your inbox (and spam folder) for a subject like “Your site is experiencing a technical issue”.

What to Look For Inside the Email

• The name of the plugin or theme causing the error
• The exact PHP fatal error message
• A Recovery Mode login link — click this!

If Recovery Mode Works

Use the recovery link to log into a special admin mode. Navigate to Plugins, find the offending plugin, and deactivate it. Then update it or replace it with an alternative.

If Recovery Mode Doesn’t Work

No email received, or the link is expired? Move to Step 2. You’ll need to get your hands dirty with the file manager.

Enable WordPress Debug Mode

When your site is broken and there’s no helpful error message on screen, debug mode is your best diagnostic tool. It writes errors to a log file so you can read exactly what went wrong.

How to Access wp-config.php

• Via File Manager: Login to cPanel → File Manager → public_html
• Via FTP: Use FileZilla or similar FTP client
• Via Hosting Control Panel: Most managed hosts have a built-in editor

Add These Debug Settings to wp-config.php

Open wp-config.php and add these lines before the line that says /* That's all, stop editing! */:

// Enable debug logging
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

Locate the Debug Log

After saving, reproduce the error by visiting your site, then look for the log at:

/wp-content/debug.log

Open it and look for lines like PHP Fatal error. They’ll usually name the exact file and line causing the problem.

Disable All Plugins Manually (Without Admin Access)

This is the most reliable fix when you can’t access your WP admin dashboard. Renaming the plugins folder forces WordPress to deactivate all plugins at once.

Method: Rename the Plugins Folder

1. Open your hosting File Manager
2. Navigate to wp-content
3. Right-click the plugins folder
4. Rename it to plugins-disabled
5. Visit your website

Finding the Faulty Plugin

Once the site loads, rename the folder back to plugins. Then activate plugins one by one, refreshing after each one until the error returns. That last plugin you activated is your problem.

Switch to a Default WordPress Theme

Themes can cause critical errors just as easily as plugins — especially after a major WordPress version update. The fix is the same idea: rename the active theme folder to force WordPress to load a default theme.

Why Themes Cause Critical Errors

• Outdated PHP functions in old theme files
• Incompatible code after a WordPress core update
• Broken child theme setup
• Custom code added directly to functions.php

How to Disable Your Theme via File Manager

Navigate to wp-content/themes/ and rename your active theme folder (e.g. divi → divi-disabled). WordPress will automatically fall back to a default theme.

Increase the WordPress Memory Limit

WordPress needs enough server memory (RAM) to run PHP scripts. When memory runs out, you get a critical error — sometimes without any clear indication that memory was the cause. This happens a lot after installing resource-heavy plugins like page builders.

Signs Your Memory Limit Is Exhausted

Add This to wp-config.php

// Increase WordPress memory limit
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M');

If that doesn’t work, also add:

define('WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M');

Update Your PHP Version

Running an old PHP version is one of the sneakiest causes of critical errors. A plugin might work fine on PHP 7.4 but throw fatal errors on PHP 8.0+ — or vice versa. Many popular plugins now require PHP 8.0 or higher. If your host is running PHP 7.2 or older, you’re going to hit problems.

How to Update PHP

• cPanel: MultiPHP Manager → select domain → choose PHP version
• DirectAdmin: PHP Version Selector in domain settings
• Managed WordPress Hosting (WP Engine, Kinsta, Cloudways): Dashboard → PHP settings

Replace Corrupted WordPress Core Files

If your WordPress installation itself got corrupted — whether from a hack, a failed update, or a bad server migration — replacing the core files can fix unexplained critical errors. This is a safe operation as long as you don’t touch your content.

How to Do It

1. Download a fresh copy of WordPress from wordpress.org/download
2. Extract the zip file on your computer
3. Upload and replace only these folders via FTP or File Manager:

Check .htaccess for Errors

A corrupted .htaccess file can cause a critical error, a 500 server error, or broken page URLs. Security plugins and caching plugins commonly write to this file, and sometimes they write bad rules.

How to Reset .htaccess

Via File Manager, find .htaccess in your root directory (enable “Show Hidden Files” if you can’t see it). Open it and replace the contents with the default WordPress rules:

# Default WordPress .htaccess
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Save the file and test your site. If it loads, the original .htaccess had bad rules. You can regenerate it cleanly by going to Settings → Permalinks in your WordPress admin and clicking Save.

Repair the WordPress Database

Database corruption is less common than plugin issues, but when it happens, it can cause critical errors that none of the above steps fix. You’ll often notice missing posts, broken admin pages, or errors that appear specifically after updates or migrations.

Enable WordPress Database Repair

Add this line to wp-config.php:

define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);

Run the Repair Tool

Visit this URL in your browser (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain):

https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php

Click Repair Database. Once done, remove the WP_ALLOW_REPAIR line from wp-config.php immediately — this URL is publicly accessible and should not remain active.

Restore a Recent Backup

Sometimes the fastest fix is the most obvious one. If your site was working perfectly yesterday, and a single update broke everything today, restoring a backup from before the update is often the right call. I’ve personally used this shortcut more than once when debugging was taking too long.

Restoring a backup is the right call when: major file corruption occurred, a hack modified core files, or when multiple updates were applied and you’re not sure which one broke things.