Why is my website showing a blank page?

I've helped several users debug why their website is showing a blank page. The blank page is usually caused by a php error. If Your php.ini is configured to hide this error, you'll get a blank page.

To find these error messages, you can either:

1. enable display_errors in your php.ini
2. review your error_log file(s).

Updating your php.ini settings to show error messages

Here is my fully functional WordPress site.

After I intentionally make a change to cause a problem, you can see the page goes blank.

I don't see an error message because my php.ini is set to hide error messages. To fix this, I'll update it so that it will show error messages.

Now that my php.ini is setup to show errors, I can see this error:

Viewing your error_log to find error messages

There is actually an easier way to find the error messages in question. PHP error messages are logged to a file named error_log. This error_log file will reside in the folder that the php script resides in. You can use FTP or the File Manager to view this file and the error messages logged.

Getting this error message is very important in resolving the issue. You can either pass it on to your programmer or debug it if the code is yours.