How to fix your crashed website by using FileZilla

Fixing a hacked website with FileZilla

Imagine you’ve made some changes to one of your website’s files using the file manager, only to realize that your edits have caused the entire site to crash. To make matters worse, you can’t even access the file manager to figure out what went wrong. Don’t worry, though – you’re not out of options. In this blog post, we’ll guide you through the steps to access your website’s files using FileZilla, a powerful FTP client that allows you to manage your site’s files even when traditional methods fail. By following these steps, you can identify and correct the problematic code, getting your website back up and running in no time.

A common cause and solution to this problem involves increasing the WordPress memory limit. For this, there are many solutions available for fixing the problem, such as the ones here. However, there is a chance that none of these will work for you, and in the event of this, you’ll need to take a different approach to fixing your website. Let’s go through the steps needed in this article.

1. Log in to your hosting account and locate the SSH/SFTP login. For Elite Managed WordPress customers, you’ll be able to find this by logging in to your Elite account, selecting your Managed WordPress plan, and scrolling down to SSH/SFTP login, as shown in the screenshot below:

2. When you can see your port and hostname, make a note of the two of them. They will be needed later.
3. Create a new login. This should be a clear button that shows when you click on SSH/SFTP details.

4. This next step depends on the condition your website is in – if it is accessible but you are receiving a fatal error, then you will need to enable SSH. If the website is returning a server error and/or the file manager is unaccessible – you should uncheck the SSH option.

5. Save your new details somewhere – you’ll need them for later too!
6. Download FileZilla if you don’t already have it installed.

FileZilla

7. Enter all of the login details you have saved (username, password, hostname, and port).
8. Once filled in, take a look on the right side of the screen and you should see remote files (this is the file manager).

9. Right click on this file and select view and edit. This will download the file to your computers default code editor.

10. Find the line of code which broke your website, and remove it or change it back to what it was before your site crashed.
11. Now save that document, and return to FileZilla, where you should be prompted to replace the file, as shown below.

12. If you’ve correctly replaced everything, this should fix your website’s error.

Conclusion

Errors can be a confusing and often annoying part of managing your website, but knowing how to resolve them is an important aspect of troubleshooting and ensuring your website does not fall victim to the same errors again. If you are still experiencing the error, we recommend contacting your hosting provider.