WordPress Critical Error or White Screen After an Update: What to Check
"There has been a critical error on this website" means WordPress hit a fatal PHP error and stopped building the page; a plain white screen is the same kind of failure without the message. After an update, the usual cause is a plugin or theme that no longer works with the rest of the site, a PHP version mismatch, or the site running out of memory. Your content is normally still intact, and the first thing to check is the inbox of the site's admin email address, because WordPress sends a recovery link there.
The checks below are safe for a non-technical owner and take about 10 minutes. Where they end, the work belongs to someone who does WordPress development.
What does "There has been a critical error on this website" mean?
It means the code that runs your site crashed before it could finish producing the page. The full wording, as given in the WordPress common errors documentation, is "There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions." The same page describes the blank-screen form of the problem, known as the White Screen of Death. The message is vague on purpose: the technical detail goes to the site administrator, not to visitors.
What is the recovery mode email and how does it work?
It is an email WordPress sends to the site's admin email address when a fatal error occurs, containing a private link that lets an administrator log in while the broken plugin or theme is switched off for them only. The feature arrived in WordPress 5.2 and is described in the WordPress core team's recovery mode announcement.
The subject line in the WordPress source code is "[Your site name] Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue", so search your inbox and spam folder for "Technical Issue". The email names the plugin or theme WordPress suspects.
What happens when you click the link
You are asked to log in, and the dashboard then shows which plugin or theme is "paused", what the error is, and an option to deactivate it. Pausing applies only to the person in recovery mode; for everyone else, the announcement says, "the site remains in a broken state until the issue has been fixed or mitigated".
Limits worth knowing
By default WordPress sends this email at most once per day, and the link stays valid for at least that long (the default rate limit is one day in the WP_Recovery_Mode class reference, checked October 6, 2026). If the admin address belongs to a former employee or an old agency, the email went to them.
What usually causes a critical error or white screen after an update?
Most often it is one plugin or theme whose new version conflicts with something else on the site. The WordPress documentation lists the common causes as "conflicts between plugins, compatibility issues with your theme, running an incompatible PHP version, hitting the memory limit, or having corrupted WordPress files".
You may not have updated anything yourself
WordPress can update plugins and themes on its own. Where auto-updates are switched on, WordPress runs them twice per day by default and emails the site owner about each attempt. Your hosting company can also change the PHP version on the server, which breaks older plugins without any change inside WordPress.
What can I safely check in about 10 minutes?
You can check five things without changing anything on the site. Write down what you find.
- The admin email inbox and its spam folder. Look for the "Technical Issue" email and any auto-update emails from the last few days. Note the plugin or theme named and the time.
- Whether the admin area loads. Open yoursite.com/wp-admin. A working dashboard with broken public pages, or the reverse, narrows the cause.
- How wide the problem is. Try the home page, one inner page and, for a shop, the checkout, in a private browser window.
- Your hosting control panel. Read any notices from the host about PHP version changes, maintenance or resource limits. Note the PHP version shown and the date of the latest backup. Look, do not restore.
- What changed and when. Ask colleagues whether anyone updated or installed a plugin, a theme or WordPress itself shortly before the error appeared.
If the dashboard loads, open Tools, then Site Health, then the Info tab. The Site Health screen lists your WordPress version, active plugins, theme and server details, and has a button that copies all of it to the clipboard. Paste that into a document for your developer.
What should I not do?
Do not make changes you cannot reverse while the cause is unknown. In particular:
- Do not restore a backup yourself. On a shop or membership site, a restore can wipe out orders, sign-ups and form entries received since the backup was taken.
- Do not delete or rename plugin or theme folders, or edit wp-config.php or any other file, even if a forum post says it is quick.
- Do not click "update all" or change the PHP version as an experiment. More changes make the original cause harder to find.
- Do not install "fix" plugins from a search result or forward the recovery link to anyone you do not trust.
One exception: if the recovery email names a clearly non-essential plugin, such as a slider or a social feed, deactivating it from the recovery mode screen is the route WordPress built for administrators. If the paused item is your theme or your shop, payment or booking plugin, leave it and hand over to a developer.
When should I call a developer, and what should I have ready?
Call a developer when the recovery email has not arrived, when the named plugin is one the business depends on, when the admin area will not load, or when the error returns after a plugin is deactivated. From here the work means reading server error logs and possibly rolling back a version. Have this ready:
- The exact message, the time you first saw it, and screenshots.
- The recovery mode email and any auto-update emails.
- Which pages fail and whether /wp-admin loads.
- What was updated or changed, by whom and when.
- The hosting company name, the PHP version shown in the panel and the date of the latest backup.
- The Site Health info, if you could copy it, and a way to grant hosting and WordPress access.
How do I stop this happening again?
Test updates on a copy of the site before they reach the live one, and make sure a recent backup exists before every update. That means a staging copy, automatic backups that someone has test-restored, and a decision about which plugins may auto-update. Our guide to backups and disaster recovery for business applications covers the backup side.
Also check the administration email address under Settings, then General, today. It should be a mailbox that a current member of staff reads, because that is where the next recovery link will go.
Quick answers
What does "There has been a critical error on this website" mean in WordPress?
It means a fatal PHP error stopped WordPress from building the page. The usual causes are a plugin or theme conflict, an incompatible PHP version or the memory limit being reached. WordPress emails details to the site's admin email address.
Where is the WordPress recovery mode email?
WordPress sends it to the site's administration email address, with a subject ending "Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue". Check that mailbox and its spam folder. By default only one such email is sent per day.
Does WordPress recovery mode fix the site for visitors?
No. Recovery mode pauses the broken plugin or theme only for the administrator who used the recovery link. Visitors keep seeing the error until the faulty plugin or theme is deactivated or repaired.
Is my content lost when WordPress shows a white screen?
Usually not. A white screen or critical error means the code that displays the site has crashed; pages, posts and orders are stored separately in the database and are normally unaffected.
Should I restore a backup to fix a WordPress critical error?
Not as a first step and not on your own. A restore can erase orders, registrations and form entries received since the backup, and the error often comes from one plugin that a developer can roll back without touching your data.
Conclusion
A critical error or white screen after an update usually traces to one plugin, one theme or a PHP change, and WordPress often tells the administrator which by email. Find that email, note whether the admin area loads, read your hosting notices, list what changed, and do not restore or delete anything.
If you have no developer available, contact Entrant Technologies with the details above and we will take a look.