How to Fix WordPress Admin Dashboard Is Not Displaying Properly & CSS Not Loading

When the WordPress admin dashboard is not displaying properly, the most common cause of this problem is when WordPress admin CSS is not loading properly. Usually, the problem occurs as the WordPress dashboard not showing after login and this can easily cause you to panic. Another common way is the menu is not showing in the WordPress dashboard.

Quick Checklist to Fix WordPress Dashboard Not Displaying Properly

Before we delve into the nuts and bolts of fixing an advanced problem of the WordPress admin dashboard not displaying properly. This is the basic checklist that you should use when troubleshooting a suspected problem of WordPress admin CSS not loading properly or a case of White Screen of death on the WordPress dashboard:

1. Clear cookies and cache to rule out the possibility of cookies and cache causing this problem
2. Update your web browser to the latest update or alternatively try loading the site in a different web browser or incognito mode.
3. Upgrade plugins and themes on your site
4. Remove or delete recently added WordPress plugins
5. Check if you are having a problem with exhausting your web hosting bandwidth.
6. Try loading the site in a different IP, you could request someone in a different place to check if the site is broken or create a hot spot with your smartphone.

If none of these solutions fix this problem, you should not panic since this problem can be fixed quickly. It is important that you understand the common cause of this problem is a broken admin side CSS style sheet or CSS styles are not loading properly at the back end.

If the admin dashboard not displaying correctly as shown in the image below, the most common cause of this problem is broken CSS styles.

Solution for WordPress admin dashboard is not displaying properly?

The solution for this problem is identifying the root cause which is in most cases is related to a new plugin that you recently added that breaks the admin CSS.

Another common cause is a new theme or a new code snippet that you introduced in the functions.php file that breaks the admin styles.

Step by Step Solution for WordPress Admin CSS not Loading Properly

The problem can be solved by two steps if it is caused by WordPress admin CSS not loading.

1. Check with your browser inspect tool if all the CSS styles in the admin are loading well. Right Click on your browser and select Inspect Element as shown below :

Check your JavaScript Console if there are errors generated by any of the plugins or themes you have added recently.

If the styles are not loading in the Inspector Tool > Network, If they are not loading reload the page when the Inspection tool is open.

1. Go to the WordPress admin dashboard that is not displaying properly and look for the plugin menu and navigate to the Plugins page and deactivate all of them using the checkboxes.
2. If the issue is fixed, the cause is a plugin and you should activate them one by one to find the one causing the admin dashboard not displaying correctly. The 200 Http status indicates that the files are loading properly.

Replace the plugin with another similar plugin that is coded well and will not break the WordPress admin CSS.

If it is the theme causing the problem to revert to the default WordPress theme and solve the problem by fixing the way styles are enqueued in your WordPress theme especially themes that have administration options.

WordPress Dashboard Icons not Showing

If your WordPress site not showing properly in the admin dashboard icons, the most likely cause is broken CSS loading and it can be fixed by deactivating all the plugins and changing to the default theme as we have outlined above.

When you move back to the default theme, you can now sort the plugins one by one to find out which new plugin that you introduced is causing havoc.

The other issue with the icon could be a broken registration menu function that uses the admin_menu hook and the dashicons. This is probably a plugin problem and you can fix it by deactivating all the plugins and finding which plugin is causing the broken CSS problem.

WordPress Dashboard not Showing After Login White Screen of Death

WordPress dashboard not showing after login is what is technically referred to as a White Screen of Death.

In most cases you will just see the white screen with absolutely no content after you log in to your WordPress dashboard as shown in the image below:

This problem is related to a broken plugin and it should be solved as we have outlined in the steps above to solve the problem of WordPress admin CSS not loading.

Since in this case, you cannot access the dashboard unlike the problem if admin CSS not loading, so we need to have FTP or CPanel, web hosting access to solve this problem. The following are the steps you should take:

Log in to your web hosting CPanel or use an FTP client like Filezilla to access the public_html root folder where your WordPress site is installed.

If you choose to use the CPanel to access the root installation of your WordPress site, click on the file manager icon in the CPanel to access the public_html folder where your site is located.

Locate your file folder and navigate to the wp-content folder then you rename the plugins folder to something like old_plugins and create a new plugins folder with the name plugins.

This will automatically deactivate all your plugins and bring your site back without the functionality of the plugins.

You should now activate the plugins one by one as you sort them out to find out which plugin is causing this problem of the WordPress dashboard not showing up after login.

Wrapping up

For years, I have fixed several sites with WordPress admin CSS, not loading problem and in most cases, the problem was related to a plugin loading the CSS in the admin the wrong way. A few exceptional cases of WordPress admin panel not showing up were caused by poorly coded WordPress themes.

It is also important that every WordPress plugin developer understands all the coding standards for plugins and particularly how to enqueue plugin scripts and styles properly. Finally, there is this great OOP plugin development framework that I have used in several WordPress plugin projects that I find very useful.

Joe