Can't edit WordPress site at all; admin section not working.

Nothing works in /wp-admin... etc.

[1Lit]

Everything on our WordPress website was working fine. The site still shows properly in a browser, but now whenever I try to login to my WordPress admin section or go into any file within the admin sections such as /wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page all I am presented with is blank pages.

There isn't even an error message, so I don't know what the problem is.

I've Googled it but to no avail. Can anybody know how I may troubleshoot please?

I'm getting really fed-up with WordPress... I have seldom come across a CMS where major problems occur all of a sudden on a regular basis even if one doesn't touch a single file!

Thanks for your help.

[LifeinAsia]

Can you view the page source? Is it truly blank, or just not rendering properly?

Do you have access to the system error logs?

[lucy24]

Do you have access to the system error logs?

I was going to say access logs, but if they come through with a clear 200, it's time for the error logs as well. To say nothing of php logs, which you really may not have access to.

If you can't get at your complete access logs and error logs, it is in any case time to change hosts.

Can you view the page source?

Come to think of it, what-if-anything* does the page title say when you get these blank pages? Not the <title> in the HTML: the visible title in your browser.

even if one doesn't touch a single file

What about changes that don't involve touching your content? Software updates, plugins and so on. Have you changed anything?

Also look at the timestamps on your physical files (any FTP-or-equivalent should say). Does anything have a newer date than you'd expect?


* I explored this recently. Looks like browsers will supply the physical filename if the <title> tag is absent, but there are probably exceptions, and who knows what happens in a CMS.

[robzilla]

Have you tried enabling debugging in wp-config.php?

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
@ini_set('display_errors',0);

This will log any errors to a file called debug.log in your /wp-content/ folder.

[travelin cat]

Did you recently update to WordPress 4.4? There has been a lot of talk on the WP site about this:
[wordpress.org...]

[tangor]

Can you FTP into the site and look at the admin pages that way? Look to see if you've been hack and a redirect has been installed.

Make sure the files are actually there before you panic. :)

[1Lit]

Thanks a lot for the advice guys. You have been terrific.

As a solution in case it ever helps anyone else, I went into the site through FTP as you suggested and disabled the entire plugins folder. Hallelujjah, the website's admin page started working again instantly! I then spent a while trying to reinstate each plugin one by one. Eventually I discovered the culprit was the "Gmedia Gallery" script. Bizarrely, I've had this installed for years on the blog and it's never caused an issue before. All of a sudden, it stopped the admin pages from working. Now that's the script is disabled, everything is working fine and dandy.

Thanks a million folks.

[not2easy]

It's good to hear that you were able to isolate the cause of the problem and get back to work again.

I've had this installed for years on the blog and it's never caused an issue before.

You don't mention that this Gmedia Gallery plugin was the current version but it could be an important cause of problems if it was not kept up to date. If you are using a version older than a year or so, that plugin may have been disabled or compromised. It should not be used in versions older than 1.2.2 according to the WP vulnerable plugins database: [wpvulndb.com...]

[tangor]

We like stories with happy endings!

Short commentary toward others reading this:

If any site becomes unresponsive HTTP, always check FTP. If you can get in that way you can deal with the nuts and bolts, and in many cases revert to a simplified version of the site a trouble check from there.