While opening the WordPress website, are you stuck with error ‘No input file specified’?

Sometimes the WordPress website entirely becomes non-functional and shows a plain PHP message as ‘No input file specified’.

At Bobcares, we often get requests from our customers to fix WordPress errors as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s get into the details on how our Support Engineers fix this.

Why do we see No input file specified error in WordPress?

Mostly, the No input file specified error shows up while loading the website after a migration.

This problem can be easily resolved by tweaking the PHP version,  correcting .htaccess file, disabling faulty plugins and so on.

For instance, the error appears as follows, while calling the website in the browser.

Let’s now check in detail how our Support Engineers fix this problem.

Different methods to fix this error

At Bobcares, where we have more than a decade of expertise in managing servers, we see many customers face problems with WordPress websites.

Now, let’s see how our Support Engineers fix this error by tweaking the PHP version to the latest, updating .htaccess and so on.

1. Tweaking PHP version

Recently one of the customers approached with the error ‘No input file specified‘ while accessing the website. According to the customer’s request, the site was restored from the contents of the backup file. After this restoration, the website started showing this error.

On further analysis, we could trace that the website was running on version PHP 5.6, an old version. We then tweaked the PHP version to a higher one, PHP7.3.

Once the version has been tweaked to a higher one, the site loaded its contents properly and the error was removed.

2. Update .htaccess

Also, while updating to latest WordPress version, we may face the error due to incorrect rewrite rules. It fails in updating the .htaccess file with correct mod_rewrite rules.

So, we take a look at the user’s .htaccess file to ensure the file has been named correctly and that it’s properly configured for mod_rewrite as following.

We add this code in the .htaccess file and save it.

We can also either try opening the wp-admin link and go to Settings > Permalink. Then without changing anything, we click the save button. Then WordPress will automatically create new .htaccess for the site.

That fixes the problem.

3. Disabling faulty plugins

In some cases, certain plugins cause the website to showcase the same error. Another customer who was having the error was rectified by renaming the plugin directory completely.

Thereafter we identified and found the faulty plugin which caused the error.

We then disabled the plugin, which in turn fixed the error and website loaded perfectly.

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Conclusion

In short, the fix for ‘No input file specified’ error on the WordPress website includes tweaking PHP version to the latest, updating rewrite rules, disabling faulty plugins, etc. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers fix the error for our customers.