Basic Guide To Diagnose Problems in Your WordPress Website

What To Do When You Have
WordPress Website Problems

This is going to be a simple blog post and will only cover the basic first steps to identifying problems.

I see people having small (and big) issues all the time in both the Warrior Forum and elsewhere.

Regardless of the problem you are having, the basic protocols to narrow down the underlying issue are going to always be the same.

WordPress Plugins:

WordPress plugin problems usually happen for just a few reasons:

1. The plugin is not compatible with your current WordPress version
2. The plugin conflicts with other plugins, or the other way around.
3. The plugin is updated but your WordPress version is not.

Almost the same as the plugin issues, but I'll point it out anyway......

WordPress Themes:
WordPress theme problems usually happen for just a few reasons:

1. The theme is not compatible with your current WordPress version.
2. The theme is conflicting with a plugin you have installed or the other way around.
3. The theme is updated but your WordPress version is not.
4. You have tried to be clever with your theme or followed a tutorial that instructed you to place some code into your theme or the theme's function.php file.

That pretty much sums up most problems.

First, a couple dah! No brainer tips!

• Make sure your WordPress installation is up to date...
• Make sure your plugins are up to date...
• Make sure if you updated WordPress that the update was NOT interrupted for any reason.

Let me give you a simple example of a conflict between a theme and a plugin before we go through the basic steps to find the problem.

If you have the OptimizePress theme (common IM theme) and you try to install the "Duplicate Posts" plugin, you will encounter an issue.

Why?

Because the OptimizePress theme uses the same function from the duplicate post plugin for creating pages on the fly.
Not really an error, but worth noting that themes often build functions into the theme that came from popular useful free plugins.

Duplicate posts, wpPageNavi, and other really useful plugins are often hardcoded right into a theme so if you try to activate that plugin, there will be an issue since the theme already has that function activated.

Anyway...

What can we do about narrowing down problems?

Let's go through the basic steps....

....and keep in mind

these are the BASIC steps so that you can at least narrow down the issue to a particular plugin or theme. More advanced diagnostics could be needed if your issue is a big one, or hard to find.


Basic Diagnostic Steps:

• Login to your WordPress admin area and navigate to your plugins page
• Deactivate plugins. Many people prefer to deactivate them one by one, but I prefer to deactivate them all at once.

Did the issue go away?
If the answer is YES....

• Start activating the plugins one by one checking each time to see if the problem came back and you'll find the offending plugin.

If the answer is NO....

• Deactivate your theme and activate the default WordPress theme. (WP v3.5+ would be the TwentyTwelve theme)

Did the issue go away?
If the answer is YES....

• Re-activate your theme and make sure the issue came back...if it did the issue is in your theme.

If the answer is NO....

• Open your FTP program and login to the site location where your WordPress install is.
• Delete the .htaccess file (Don't freak out, by going into wp-admin and saving your permalinks again, WordPress will auto create another one.)

Did the issue go away?
If the answer if YES....

• Either your .htaccess file was somehow corrupt, or a plugin (security or related) that wrote to the .htaccess file keeps creating an issue with whatever it is putting into the .htaccess file. Stop using that plugin.

If the answer is NO.... (ok, now this is starting to suck but don't panic yet..)

• It's likely something is corrupt in your WordPress install or maybe database.
• Since we set everything back to default and no plugins are active and the .htaccess is ok, something is really wrong!

Often a manual re-installation of WordPress can solve the problem.

You can re-install WordPress manually by doing the following:

• Go to WordPress.org and download a fresh copy of WordPress, then unzip the folder.
• Delete the wp-config.php file and the wp-content folder from the clean version. (you'll see why in a moment, I'm covering your ass from accidental blog mayhem).
• Grab your FTP program and login to your website server to the location of your WordPress install.

Now, you can do 1 of 2 things here.....

The first way...

• Delete all the WordPress files on the server location EXCEPT the wp-config.php and the wp-content folder *IMPORTANT!!
• Upload all the new clean files to the server MINUS the wp-config.php and the wp-content folder which you should have already deleted from the clean new WordPress folder on your computer.

The second way...

• Upload the clean WordPress files to the server MINUS the wp-config.php and wp-content folder which you should have already deleted from the clean new WordPress folder on your computer.
• This time, don't delete the files on the server, simply overwrite them. Your FTP program will ask you if you want to overwrite, just select "Overwrite All" (*IMPORTANT!! - DO NOT overwrite the wp-config.php or wp-content folder or you will regret it!)

Now go to your admin area and see if the problem still exists....

NO?
Your awesome! You found the problem.

YES?
OH crap! you need some advanced diagnostics like pronto.



You can do a lot more, but this will at least help you narrow your problem down to the theme, a plugin, or a corrupt WordPress installation.

Hope you find this useful!

David V

P.S. - Don't forget to leave a comment and rate this post!