The site is experiencing technical difficulties. Please check your site admin em

If the email does not come along, a good other way to find the root cause is to check your server logs where your site is hosted to find the PHP error(s) that happened.

On another note: please know that PHP 7.4 is already EOL (see https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php), you better test with PHP 8.1 or above and make sure everything is compatible.

Thanks Jeroen

Checked the server logs and theres a thousand of these..

[11-Jan-2024 11:37:40 UTC] PHP Warning: chmod(): No such file or directory in /home/suitsoci/public_html/wp-includes/plugin.php(445) : runtime-created function on line 1

Any idea on fix or a tutorial pointing me to the right direction?

8.1 shut down the site completely and wp-admin access.

Hmm, that doesn’t ring a bill as it’s referring a core file rather than a theme or plugin code/files.

Maybe set the site back on 5.6. Disable all plugins. Re-upgrade to 7.4 and check if it works. If WP core and your theme work, that’s fine, you could then enable plugin per plugin and see when you reencounter issues. It might be a bit of a hassle, though, depending on how many plugins are running. In any case, it’s a good fit for also doing the same thing with 8.1 – checking every aspect (plugin/theme) running if they are being maintained.

Thanks Jeroen.

I followed the steps found here- https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-deactivate-all-plugins-when-not-able-to-access-wp-admin/

I renamed the folder in plugins to deactivate. Then i updated the PHP- both 7.4 and 8.1 and had the same issues as before.

Any other suggestions?

Can you reinstall WordPress core under Dashboard > Updates? There should be a button to reinstall. When you do its makes sure all core files are present. Also make sure to run latest core. Without plugins it should work fine. But the issue might also lay in your active theme. Maybe before you upgrade PHP, switch to a default theme (Twenty Twenty Four for example) and see if that works.

Have you updated Kadence before updating WordPress core? If so, it should work together with 6.4.2 (latest WordPress) just fine if you are not running any other plugins. But it might be specific to your hosting account, or something else. Hard to tell without having more specifics or error logs provided. Your best best is maybe to have someone looked at it.