Blog Showing an Error Message: How to get Back Up and Running

Is your Blog Showing an Error Message?

Learn How to get Back Up and Running!

There aren’t many things scarier as a new blogger than having your entire website crash!

You load your blog and it’s not there… and if you can’t get on to it, neither can any of your readers!

Whether it be a completely blank screen or an error message, as a new blogger, the panic sets in.

We’ve all been there!

I’m going to explain what to do if you see your website or blog showing an error message (or a blank screen), and how to get back up and running asap.

As a new blogger, your website crashing and showing an error message is one of the scariest things that can happen. As your experience goes up, you will realise that this will happen from time to time.

It’s frustrating but just something that can happen so knowing what to do and where to go to fix it is important.

You spend so much time setting it all up, writing posts, checking settings work, updating plugins etc. Then suddenly you go onto your website and it’s just a blank page with an error message slapped across the middle.

What do you do?

Don’t panic!

If the issue is widgets in the wrong place or blank spaces over the website, this most likely will need to be worked out in your theme/website settings.

Have you installed any new plugins or widgets?

Did you change your blog theme recently?

Have you changed anything in the coding of your website?

If so, you would need to backtrack and undo whatever you changed and this should help fix the issue!

If the issue is that the screen is completely blank or just showing an error message, speaking to your hosting company is the best plan.

This is why having a good hosting company is so important.

You need to know that they are there for you and can help you resolve any issues that pop up.

If You Have a Free Blog

If you have a free blog or website then this won’t be applicable to you as your website is hosted for you so you don’t have an external hosting company.

In the case that you see that your free blog showing an error message (or a blank screen), try undoing any changes you have recently made if this is possible.

If it’s not possible, you would need to speak to whichever company owns your website and they should be able to get you back up and running!

Common Reasons Your Blog is Showing an Error Message:

Your Domain or Hosting Has Expired

This is most likely not applicable as chances are if this was the case, you’d know about it, but it’s worth mentioning to check.

You can of course get in touch/log in to your hosting company account to double check everything is in order.

If it’s an old website you were wanting to reinvent this may have happened, but if your hosting and domain are up to date, it’s more likely to be one of the following options:

Plugins

Plugins are amazing.

They help a lot of the day-to-day running of your website, they have so many uses and help in so many ways.

BUT… there is one mistake you can make (I have made more than once), regarding the installation and updating of these plugins.

Plugins themselves can have so many amazing features and options to really make your blogging life better and easier.

We know from THIS POST not to install too many (as tempting as it can be in the early days), as it can really slow your blog down.

The other issue with installing/updating a lot of plugins at once is that they sometimes don’t get along with each other.

Usually they will all work in harmony, but as they are created by different people, there is no guarantee all plugins will work (or work well) with all other plugins.

By all means download the ones you want/need for your website! But install them one at a time (checking your website in between installations), just to make sure.

The same goes for updates!

Plugins will need updated but the biggest piece of advice I can give you here is DO NOT CLICK UPDATE ALL. Believe me lol.

Ideally you would only have one or two needing to be updated at any time but if you have 3, 4, 5, 6+ needing to be updated, never update more than 2 at a time.

Update one or two and then check your website.

To save time you can have your blog open in a second tab and after each update just go back to the blog tab and check everything still works!

Updating plugins is where I’ve had issues in the past.

Not only can updating multiple plugins at a time cause an error, but when you then go to your hosting company to sort it they will ask which plugins you recently updated.

If you don’t remember, it can make things tricker for them.

They should still be able to fix/reverse changes for you, but being able to provide the information of which plugins were the ones recently updated, definitely helps them out.

Nowadays, even when updating just one or two, I make a mental note of the name of that plugin, and always check my blog after updating.

The temptation will be there to update all of them at once – don’t lol.

Other Potential Causes

If you modify the HTML of your site or update the PHP, this can also cause issues.

Chances are if you’re confident with modifying HTML, you won’t have been looking up how to fix it, and would know to just reverse any bad lines of code.

If you’ve had a go at adding in some HTML and it’s gone badly wrong and you aren’t confident in how you can fix it without making it worse – go to your hosting company and they can help!

PHP updates (don’t worry, this baffles me too), do need to happen, but your hosting company will help implement the updates. This is what happened last time I did it too.

Again when going to your hosting company for your blog to help fix things, try and be as detailed as possible with them as to what was modified/what code was added and to which part of your website.

The more information you can provide, the quicker you will be back up and running.

How Your Hosting Company Can Help

Having a hosting company that has good customer service really does make the world of a difference when it comes to day to day running of your blog.

Errors and website crashes unfortunately are part of owning a blog!

Getting back up and running as quickly as possible is key to avoiding any prolonged issues.

If you ever have an issue you can’t/aren’t comfortable rectifying yourself, chat to your hosting company for your blog and they should be able to help.

Biggest win is if they are like Hostgator and have a 24/7 live webchat so it doesn’t matter about any differences in time zones!

Any hosting company with good customer service should have you back up and running in no time.

As mentioned above, you will need to go to them and explain what error you see (or if you just see a blank screen then tell them this). They will then most likely ask you when you first noticed the issue and what updates/changes have been made recently.

If it’s from updating plugins, try and tell them exactly which ones you updated recently but if you can’t remember, they will still be able to help. It may just take them a little longer. Same goes for any modification/addition of HTML on your blog.

Backup Your Website

This part is so important.

Sometimes errors happen, things go wrong, plugins go ballistic, or updates don’t quite go to plan.

This is why it is so important that you backup your website before making any drastic changes (or any changes ideally).

The simplest way to do this is with a plugin, but the important part is that you make a backup, and regularly.

Quite a few plugins will do auto backups which means it will always keep backing up the latest version.

You don’t want all your time and effort to go to waste!

I hope this helps take some panic and worry out of why your blog could be showing an error message, and how to get back up and running!

All else fails, talk to your hosting company and they will be able to help you get back up and running!

Have you ever had this happen to you?

How Quickly did you get up and running again?

Let me know in the comments below!

Speak Soon!

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