Despite being the world’s most popular CMS currently, WordPress isn’t without its faults.
There are quite a few errors that pop up on every WordPress site every now and then, and those are the errors we are targeting throughout this piece today.
The Errors we will be targeting today are:
- Fatal Error: Maximum Execution Time
- WordPress Automatic Logout Issue
- White Screen and missing Buttons on “create new post” page.
Fatal Error Maximum Execution Time
It’s not one of those common WordPress errors, and actually shows itself quite rarely, but it does.
And when it does, as it honestly claims, well it’s fatal. Because it’s not a common WordPress error there aren’t many articles on the web about how to fix it.
So here I bring to you the same.
Let’s first have a look at what causes the Error.
The cause is pretty simple, WordPress, as you may already know, is a PHP script, meaning it’s written and coded in PHP.
Now some hosting companies have a specific time-frame for which PHP scripts can run on those sites.
When that time limit is exceeded, this error pops up.
So here’s how to solve it.
Editing the .htaccess file
The .htaccess file is one of the most important files in your complete WordPress installation.
Simply editing it solves most of the problems and errors that we generally face on WordPress.
Now I suppose you can’t access your WordPress admin panel as of now, considering how you’re getting the error.
So you’ll need to use your cPanel or FTP client to edit your .htaccess file. Login to your Cpanel or FTP client, and navigate to wp-content folder.
Once you’re there, you’ll be able to access/edit the file. Simply edit it, and paste the following line of code there:
php_value max_execution_time 300
What we just did is we increased the PHP time limit to 300 seconds, see if it solves the error, if it doesn’t well then increase it to 500 or 600.
This is the only available solution to the problem. But in case your issue still isn’t fixed, I’d urge you to talk to your hosting provider and ask them to solve it from their end because there really isn’t much you can do from your end if this doesn’t work.
WordPress Automatic Logout Issue
WordPress has this another problem where you’re automatically logged out of your WordPress admin panel after a certain amount of time.
Why this happens has a very simple reason, WordPress logs you in using “authentication cookies”, these are authenticated using your WordPress URL.
At times , what happens is the URL that’s set for your WordPress site, doesn’t match the URL that has been set on your server’s side (Site URL) and it causes you to be logged out.
The fix to the problem is easy and simple.
Simply log in to your WordPress Admin Panel, and head over to Settings > General.
There you’ll see the following screen:
Just make sure that the “WordPress URL” and the “Site URL” have the exact same characters.
In most cases, it’s an issue of the “www” prefix. Meaning in one of those boxes, the URL is set with the www prefix, in the other, the prefix is missing.
Anyway, whatever differences they may have, you just make sure they match. In other words, it’s okay if you set both of them to http://www.yoursiteurl.com
That should solve the problem.
In case you can’t access your Admin panel, you can still change these values to match each other.
Again use your cPanel or an FTP client to login to your WordPress server, you’ll find a file called WpConfig.php right there in the directory where you’ve installed WordPress.
Edit this file, and just before the “last line”, paste the following code:
define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://mysite.com’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://mysite.com’);
*Change “mysite.com” to your site URL.
This would definitely solve the problem.
White Screen and Missing Buttons on Create New Post Page
One of the more common issues with WordPress is that it sometimes displays a “white screen” where you can’t click or interact when you’re trying to scribble down a new post.
Or, some buttons from the top bar aren’t available. The fixes to the problem are simple, scared be not!
Browser Cache:
This is the simplest fixes to this problems, and it does work most often than not as well.
Honestly, I’ve no idea why this “works”, but it does. Simply go to your browser’s settings, and delete all cache.
Go back to your “new post” page, refresh it, and it should work.
.htaccess file edit
We’ve already used the .htaccess method once above, haven’t we? Yeah, it’s a lifesaver.
This time too, if the browser cache method didn’t work for you well you can solve the issue by pasting the following line by editing your .htaccess file!
Simply go to your wp-content folder, right click on the .htaccess file, click on edit and paste the following lines there.
define(‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false);
Done!
Final Words
So I tried my best to solve the above three problems in this piece, if they worked, great!
If not, well you can always get in touch with your hosting provider to help you out, and they will as well considering you’re with a reputed, established and good company.
Do let me know which other errors you’re facing on your WordPress installation and I’ll love to suggest some fixes for the same.
In the meanwhile, also do let me know what you think of this piece in the comments and on our social media pages, interacting with you folks is a large part of why I do what I do.
You should know basics of connecting to the database and general error correction. So if WordPress reports that it is getting an error establishing a connection to WordPress Database, you know how to fix it. If you want to learn about it, you should check this amazing tutorial by 000webhost.com