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Troubleshooting Guide

How to create a phpinfo page?

A phpinfo page shows all the php setting and enabled module for your website/domain php and come very handy in trouble shooting.

Steps

  1. Log into your cPanel. (this is your domain cpanel not your whm account)
  2. Open your File Manager.
  3. Navigate to the directory you are working with. This is important because each folder can actually be set to have different php settings. In this example, we are viewing the php settings for our main domain, so we are navigating to the public_html folder.
  4. In the top menu, click New File.
  5. When prompted for the file name, enter phpinfo.php (it can actually be named anything, phpinfo.php is simply a common name for the file).

  6. Find the phpinfo.php file in your list of files (it should have automatically updated). Right click on it and choose "Edit". If you see a "Text Editor" prompt, choose "utf-8" from the drop down list and then click "Edit". 7.Enter the following text:

    <? phpinfo(); ?>

  7. Then click Save Changes.

  8. Now go to http://yourdomain.com/phpinfo.php and there you can see all information for your php setting (make sure you first changed yourdomain.com with your domain name in your browser address bar)

My website only shows a blank/white page. How can I fix it?

Both PHP errors and database errors can manifest as a white screen, a blank screen with no information, commonly known in the WordPress community as the WordPress White Screen of Death (WSOD).

Before resorting to desperate measures, there are a number of reasons for the WordPress white screen of death:

  • A Plugin is causing compatibility issues. If you can access the Administration Screens try deactivating all of your Plugins and then reactivating them one by one. If you are unable to access your Screens, log in to your website via FTP. Locate the folder wp-content/plugins and rename the Plugin folder plugins_old. This will deactivate all of your Plugins. You can read more about manually deactivating your plugins in the Wordpress Troubleshooting FAQ.

  • Your Theme may be causing the problem. This is especially likely if you are experiencing the white screen of death after you have just activated a new Theme, or created a New Site in a WordPress Network. Log in to the Administration Screens and activate the default WordPress Theme. If you can't access your Administration Screens, access your website via FTP and navigate to the /www/wp-content/themes/ folder. Rename the folder for the active Theme.

  • Your Theme directory may be missing or renamed. This is common for developers who have just created a local development environment and cloned the database, which is pointing to a theme (or theme directory) that might be missing or renamed. To test this solution, try accessing wp-login.php or /wp-admin/. If you see anything, this is a good indication it's theme-related. Log in as an administrator, then try to view the front-end and you should see a WordPress error message to the effect of: The theme directory "{theme-name}" does not exist. You can solve this in any n umber of ways, including switching themes on the admin side, renaming your directory, or editing the "theme" and "stylesheet" records in wp_options The WP_DEBUG feature often provides additional information.

What is the cPanel URL of my Accounts?

The cPanel URL of your domains is the same as the WHM URL of those domains but instead of 2087 the port number for cPanel is 2083.

For instance, if your WHM is https://whm12.smartseohosting.net:2087 your cPanel is going to be https://whm12.smartseohosting.net:2083 (notice the port numbers)

Important

There is no cPanel server installed on any of the SEO IPs. You will not be able to connect to cpanel using http://domain.com/cpanel

How to investigate and fix HTTP 500 error (internal server error)?

HTTP 500 Error usually means that you have either a problem in the .htaccess file or that a php plugin is missing.

In order to fix the issue you need to first figure out what the actual error is and to do so you need to check 2 different locations.

First login to the cPanel of the domain (not WHM) following these instructions.

  • Then in cpanel click on "errors" item to check your error logs.

  • If the above is empty you will need to then click on "File manager", go to your www directory and there download your error.log file and check it for the errors.

Finding the actual error, following the above steps, should now help you solve the problem with your website.

Connection attempt failed with ECONNREFUSED

If you get FTP connections errors similar to "Connection attempt failed with ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server" it is mostly because of the wrong FTP IP.

There is no FTP server installed on any of the SEO IPs of our service. The FTP servers are only installed on the WHM server.

To fix the problem, simply replace the IP that you used for FTP server in your FTP client (ie. Filezilla)with the IP of the WHM server of your domain and the connection should go through.

How to enable debug mode under wordpress?

WordPress includes several settings that you can use to help debug the main application, themes, your own custom code, and more.

Generally, these settings are intended for use by developers and should not be used on “live” sites. However, you can also use them in certain scenarios to help troubleshoot issues you may be experiencing with third-party code, such as plugins or themes.

To enable debugging mode in WordPress, follow these steps:

  1. Using the cPanel File Manager open the wp-config.php file in your preferred text editor.

  2. To enable debugging mode, add the following line to the wp-config.php file: define('WP_DEBUG', true);

    When this setting is enabled, WordPress displays all PHP errors, notices, and warnings.

  3. Save your changes and exit the text editor. Debugging mode is now active.

  4. When you are done, disable debugging mode by modifying the line in the wp-config.php file as follows: define('WP_DEBUG', false);

ADDITIONAL DEBUGGING OPTIONS

There are several additional settings you can use to control the debugging information that WordPress provides:

  • WP_DEBUG_LOG: When WP_DEBUG_LOG and WP_DEBUG are enabled, WordPress saves all error information to the debug.log file in the wp-content directory. By default, this setting is disabled. To enable this setting, add the following line to the wp-config.php file:

    define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);

  • WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY: When WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY and WP_DEBUG are enabled, WordPress displays error and warning messages on web pages. By default, this setting is enabled. When this setting is disabled, debugging messages are hidden from view. To disable this setting, add the following line to the wp-config.php file:

    define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

  • SCRIPT_DEBUG: When SCRIPT_DEBUG is enabled, WordPress uses development versions of core CSS and JavaScript files instead of the compressed versions that it normally uses. By default, this setting is disabled. You can use this setting to test modifications to built-in .js or .css files. To enable this setting, add the following line to the wp-config.php file:

    define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);

How do I know if my site has been limited by Cloud Linux?

  1. Log into your cpanel, either through the WHM reseller account or directly.
  2. Click on the Resource Usage icon under the Logs section.
    • From there, you will be able to see if your website was limited. You will see an indication such as: CPU resources were limited for your site or Memory resources were limited for your site.
  3. Click on [Details].
    • You will be able to see indepth details on why your site was slowed down. Any values in RED will indicate that you exceeded the limit, which is what caused the slow down