If you face ‘failed to open stream’ error in WordPress, then you can follow some steps given in below to fix the error. This is the error which usually points out the location of the scripts where the error has occurred. It is quite difficult for the users who are the beginner to understand it. In this article, we will show you how to easily fix WordPress failed to open stream error.

Why Failed to Open Stream Error Occurs?

At first, it needs to check what causes the ‘Failed to open stream’ error in WordPress. After that, it will be easy to fix the error. This is the error which occurs when WordPress is unable to load the file mentioned in website code. During the error occurs, sometimes WordPress will continue loading the site and only show a warning message, while other times WordPress will show a fatal error and will not load anything else.

The message phrasing will be different depending on where the error occurs in the code and the reason for failure. It will also give you clues about what needs to be fixed.

Normally, this message would look something like this:

Warning: require(/home/website/wp-includes/load.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/website/wp-settings.php on line 19

Fatal error: require(): Failed opening required ‘/home/website/wp-includes/load.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/share/php/:/usr/share/php5/’) in /home/website/wp-settings.php on line 19

Here is another example:

Last Error: 2018-04-04 14:52:13: (2) HTTP Error: Unable to connect: ‘fopen(compress.zlib://https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/accounts/~all/webproperties/~all/profiles?start-index=1): failed to open stream: operation failed’

Let’s take a look at how to troubleshoot and fix ‘failed to open stream’ error in WordPress.

Fixing Failed to Open Stream Error in WordPress

As we noticed earlier, this is the error which can be caused by a variety of reasons and the error message will be different depending on the cause and location of the file that’s causing the error.

Failed to open stream phrase would be followed by a reason. For example, permission denied, no such file or directory, the operation failed, and more.

Now if the error message contains no such file or directory, then you need to look in the code to figure out which file is noticed at that particular line.

When it is a plugin or theme file, then this means that the plugin or theme files were either deleted or not installed correctly. Then you have to deactivate and reinstall the theme/plugin in question to fix the error.

It is also possible that WordPress is unable to locate the files because of a missing .htaccess file in your root folder. In that case, you need to go to Settings » Permalinks page in your WordPress admin and just click on the ‘Save changes’ button to regenerate the .htaccess file.

When the error message is followed by Permission denied, then this means that WordPress does not have the permission which is right to access the file or directory referenced in the code.

To fix the error, you need to check WordPress files and directory permissions and correct them if needed.

At last, some WordPress plugins load scripts from third-party sources like Google Analytics, Facebook APIs, Google Maps, and other third-party APIs.

APIs may require authentication or may have changed the way developers can access them. A failure to authenticate or incorrect access method will result in WordPress failing to open the required files.

To fix the error, you will need to contact the plugin author for support. They will be able to help you fix the error.

We hope this article will help you to fix the WordPress ‘failed to open stream’ error.