WordPress is a free and open-source content management system that allows users to create and host websites, start online blogs, offer online courses or memberships, and more!

WordPress is by far the most popular CMS today. Its ease of use and versatility enable most users and business owners to create a website that works for their needs. However, one of the biggest problems is when the site goes down due to a critical error.

Such instances can be confusing to figure out but let’s take a deeper look.
One of the glitches WordPress users face is the site refusing to load, showing a blank white screen instead. This screen has been replaced to show the error message. The issue can usually be traced back to an issue with PHP: either your memory limit being surpassed or an error in your code, plugins, or theme. It may also be an issue of database corruption.

While the error text itself may not be very helpful, knowing this makes troubleshooting much easier. It would be best if you also looked for other types of errors as they might be present on your site as well.
Knowing that the cause is likely PHP-related, these may involve editing core WordPress files. Even with your site in a broken state, make sure to back it up before implementing any of these suggestions, as we don’t want to make it worse!

If you can log in to your website’s backend, that will help immensely. But as your entire site is likely down, you’ll very likely need to access it through FTP (or SFTP).
Contact your web host or look through your hosting dashboard to find your FTP login credentials, and make sure to install an FTP client like FileZilla.

If you’re having trouble with WordPress, one of the first things you should do is enable debugging. With debug mode on, you’ll be able to see the various PHP errors occurring on your site, and you can use this to trace back to the root of the issue.

Follow these steps if you need to debug manually or access the debug log.

Step 1: Connect to your site with FTP.

Step 2: Find wp-config.php in the root folder and open it with a text editor or IDE.

Step 3: Place the following code at the bottom of the document, just before the final message, then save and close the file.

Debugging is now enabled on your site, and errors will be written to the log. You can find the debug log in the wp-content folder, named debug.log. When you are finished debugging, make sure to remove these lines of code.When WordPress errors rear their head, restoring a backup can be a quick and easy way out. While it won’t always solve the issue, it is worth a shot. And if the problem happens again, you may be able to retrace your steps next time.
These are just some of the ways to fix your Critical Error issues on WordPress that may help your website run smoothly again.