My website is not loading - how to diagnose and fix it

When your website stops loading it can feel alarming, but the cause is almost always something straightforward. This guide walks you through every likely reason, from the simplest checks first to more involved debugging steps.

Check our status page first

Before you dig into your own account, check whether the issue is on our end.

Visit status.kualo.com and look for any active incidents affecting your server.
If an incident is listed that matches your symptoms, we are already working on it. You do not need to raise a ticket, but you are welcome to do so if you need an update.
If the status page shows everything as operational, the problem is almost certainly specific to your account or domain - keep reading.

Our status page is updated in real time whenever we detect or investigate a server-level issue. It is always the fastest way to rule us out.

Check whether it is just you

Sometimes a site appears down only for you, while everyone else can reach it fine.

Go to downforeveryoneorjustme.com and enter your domain.
Ask a colleague or friend on a different network to try loading the site.
Try your site on a mobile data connection rather than your home or office Wi-Fi.

If others can reach your site but you cannot, there are still several possible causes specific to your connection or device - for example, your IP address may be firewalled, your local DNS cache may be stale, or your browser may be serving a cached version of the page. Try clearing your browser cache and flushing your DNS cache, then test again. If the problem persists, continue working through the sections below, as the cause may still lie with your domain, hosting account, or DNS settings.

Check whether your domain has expired

An expired domain is one of the most common reasons a site suddenly goes offline, and it can catch people off guard if auto-renewal failed.

If your domain is registered with us, log in to the Kualo Client Area and go to Domains, then check the expiry date next to your domain name.
If your domain is registered elsewhere, log in to your registrar's control panel to check the expiry date.
If it has expired, renew it immediately. DNS changes after renewal can take a few hours to propagate.

See our guide on managing your domain renewals and the domain lifecycle for more detail on what happens when a domain lapses.

If your domain expired recently, renewing it should restore your site within a few hours. If it has been expired for longer, the domain may have entered a redemption period and additional fees may apply.

Check whether your hosting account is suspended

Accounts can be suspended for non-payment or, less commonly, for a terms of service issue.

Log in to the Kualo Client Area and check whether your hosting package shows as Suspended.
If it is suspended for non-payment, settling the outstanding invoice will usually restore access quickly.
See our article on account suspensions for a full explanation of what to do.

Check your disk space and inode usage

When your hosting account runs out of disk space or hits its inode limit, your site can stop serving pages, emails can fail to deliver, and file writes will fail silently.

Log in to cPanel and look at the Disk Usage figure in the sidebar.
If you are at or near 100%, you need to free up space before your site will recover.
Use the Disk Usage tool to find the largest directories.
Check your inode count using the guide on how to check the number of inodes in your hosting account.
Follow the steps in how to free up disk space and manage inode usage to resolve the issue.

A full disk is a silent killer. Your site may appear to load but behave strangely - forms stop working, images fail to upload, and logs stop writing - before it goes down completely.

Check for a PHP error

A PHP error in your site's code will often produce a blank white page, a 500 Internal Server Error, or a partial page load.

In cPanel, go to Select PHP Version and enable error logging if it is not already on. See how to enable PHP error logging in cPanel.
Open File Manager in cPanel and look for a file called error_log in your site's root folder (usually public_html). Open it and look at the most recent entries.
Common errors include calling a function that does not exist in your current PHP version, a missing file, or a syntax error in a recently edited file.
If you recently changed your PHP version, switching back to the previous version may restore the site immediately. Use the Select PHP Version tool in cPanel to do this.

For WordPress-specific PHP errors, see our guide on diagnosing critical errors in WordPress.

Check for a recent plugin, theme, or software update

Auto-updates are one of the most common causes of a site suddenly going down. A plugin or theme update can introduce a conflict that breaks the site entirely.

If you run WordPress, check whether WP Toolkit or WordPress itself applied an automatic update recently. Log in to your WordPress dashboard if you can, or use WP Toolkit in cPanel.
Deactivate recently updated plugins one at a time to isolate the culprit. If you cannot access the dashboard, you can rename the plugin folder via File Manager or FTP to deactivate it.
See how to manage your plugins in WordPress and our guide on WordPress auto updates.
For other applications installed via Softaculous, check the update log in Softaculous under All Installations.

If a plugin update broke your site, restoring a recent backup is often the fastest fix. See the section on restoring a backup below.

Check for a 500 Internal Server Error

A 500 error usually means something went wrong at the application level - a bad .htaccess rule, a PHP error, or a permissions problem.

Read our dedicated guide: how to fix a 500 Internal Server Error on your website.
Check your .htaccess file for any recently added rules. Renaming it temporarily (for example, to .htaccess_old) will tell you quickly whether it is the cause.
Check file permissions. The Fix File Permissions tool in cPanel can reset these to safe defaults in one click.

Check for a database connection error

If your site shows "Error Establishing a Database Connection" or a similar message, your application cannot reach its MySQL database.

Follow the steps in troubleshooting 'error establishing a database connection'.
Common causes include incorrect database credentials in your config file, a database that was accidentally deleted, or the database user losing its privileges.

Check for a 503 error

A 503 error means your site's code could not complete a request, often because a script timed out or hit a resource limit.

Read 503 errors explained: why they happen and how to fix them.
Check your resource usage in cPanel to see whether your account is hitting its CPU or memory limits.
If you are regularly hitting limits, you may need to optimise your site, upgrade your plan or consider a resource boost. See how to use Resource Boosts in cPanel.

Check your DNS settings

If your domain's DNS records are pointing to the wrong server, or if you recently changed nameservers, your site may not load for some or all visitors.

Check whether your domain is pointing to the correct IP address using a tool such as whatsmydns.net.
If you recently changed nameservers or DNS records, allow up to 48 hours for DNS propagation to complete.
You can use the Track DNS tool in cPanel to look up your domain's current DNS records.
If you use Cloudflare, make sure the proxy settings and SSL mode are configured correctly. See using AutoSSL with Cloudflare.

Check your SSL certificate

An expired or misconfigured SSL certificate will cause browsers to block your site with a security warning, which many visitors will interpret as the site being down.

In cPanel, go to SSL/TLS Status and check whether your certificate is valid and up to date.
If AutoSSL failed to renew, you can trigger it manually. See how to manually run AutoSSL for a domain in cPanel.
If your site recently had SSL installed and will not open, see site won't open after SSL installation.

Check whether your site has been compromised

Malware or a hack can cause a site to be suspended by us, blocked by Google, or simply broken by malicious code injected into your files.

Check Imunify360 in cPanel for any malware detections. See how to view your Imunify360 security in cPanel.
Check Patchman for any flagged vulnerabilities. See accessing Patchman via cPanel.
If your WordPress site has been hacked, follow our guide: help! My WordPress site has been compromised.

Restore a recent backup

If you cannot identify the cause quickly, restoring a recent backup is often the fastest way to get back online.

We keep backups for the last 30 days via JetBackup. See understanding your backup options to choose the right restore method.
To restore your files, see restoring file backups in cPanel.
To restore your database, see restoring a database backup in cPanel.

If you run WordPress, WP Toolkit can create and restore site-specific backups quickly. See backing up your WordPress website with WP Toolkit.

Contact our support team

If you have worked through the steps above and your site is still not loading, please raise a support ticket and we will investigate for you.

To help us resolve the issue as quickly as possible, please include all of the following in your ticket:

Your domain name and the exact URL that is not loading.
The exact error message you see - copy and paste it, or include a screenshot.
The date and time you first noticed the problem, including your timezone.
Your IP address - visit kualo.com/whatsmyip to find it. This helps us check whether the issue is specific to your connection or network.
What you have already tried - this saves time and avoids us repeating steps you have done.
Whether the issue affects all visitors or just you - test from a different device or network if possible.

See how to create a support ticket in MyKualo if you need help raising one.