So, your WordPress site seems like it’s down or has some type of error. What do you do? The first thing you shouldn’t be doing is panicking. Troubleshoot it out.
The biggest clue in whether your site is truly down before you check it, is if the browser screen says “No Data Received” or “Site Cannot Be Found.” This would be a case that you’d want to contact your web host. You could also try checking the site – Down For Everyone Or Just Me. This is a simple troubleshoot that can help you big time, especially if you’re not code savvy.
Other types of errors would be memory allocation whether for PHP or for the web host’s cache.
Some plugin issues in particular have the following behavior:
- The site has a blank page.
- The site has an error where the path listed in the error refers to a plugin in the /wp-content/plugins folder or a specific file with some of that in the path.
- Error to pluggable.php
Some of these are similar to theme issues, but the difference in some of them are the error in the path. Themes fall under the /wp-content/themes path.
It’s important to try to be conscientious of the difference in errors. It’s also important to keep your plugins and themes up-to-date, even if it’s been a few weeks since the last date.
If you don’t know which plugin is causing the problem, you can go to your site via FTP or your web host File Manager, and copy the files to a another folder. Make sure to name it something like “plugins-old”.
In the plugin folder (not the plugins-old), simple remove each plugin one by one. As you remove each one, check your site each time to see if it appears. If none of that does the trick, then it might be your theme. In the case that doesn’t work, consider reading more on troubleshooting WordPress.
You never know what can happen between the old version and the new version of the plugin. The new plugin version may patch a security hole. Yes, a plugin fail sucks, but getting mad at your web host because your plugin broke is not the solution, especially if some of the reason is that you haven’t updated your plugin to the latest version. In fact, they aren’t obligated to remove the plugin giving the problem. They are obligated to make sure your web hosting account is up and running.
Now, on a further note – a lot of people do wait to update their plugins, but in a lot of cases, it’s not necessary to wait unless you have seen a lot of posts or talk in the WordPress community to not update specific plugins.
Have you ever had a plugin break. Did you
It often happen when updating the core version of WordPress. Haven’t happen to me recently, I have to admit that, but fix is usually very easy, just renaming the folder of suspected plugin until there is a fix or update to the new version.
This is one of the most common problem with WordPress, when you use too many plugins. I recommend not to update WordPress as soon as it is available. Since the plugins is not yet modified for new version, chances are the some plugin might create a problem. And if it happens, you can login to your dashboard using yourdomain/wp-admin path (in most cases you will be able to login) and delete the plugin which is creating the problem.
Again i recommended not to delete a plugin using FTP/File-manager as it will not delete its data in database.
They told me over at my hosting site, whose name I will not mention to avoid sounding spammy, that what they generally do on WordPress sites is just start at the top of the list of plug ins and deactivate them one by one until the problem is fixed.
Hi Nile,
Obviously we panic when we face these types of problem. Specially for a beginner when it comes about an error in the website then newbies will panic a lot. You know for beginners it’s hard to let their hard work go. I don’t mean as if others don’t. But they have the experience and many solutions are their.
Normally when we get an error while loading any website then it’s about web hosting problem.
But if any WordPress plugin causes problem then it’s hard to find out.
Thanks for sharing with us. This post may help many bloggers.
~Ravi
Hi Nile
I had an issue with the “Tweet Old Posts” plugin this week. They released 3 or 4 new version that day and the last on of the broke my entire blog. It was pretty easy to identify that it was the plugin I had just updated and I was able to fix it renaming the folder of the plugin.
Oh man this brings back bad memories! I had so many problems with one of my other blogs last year and issues with plugins was just one of them. I learned some hard lessons but at least I learned … ironically one of the biggest lessons was that there is pretty much nothing that can’t be fixed if you remain calm. 🙂
I am now knowledgeable when comes to troubleshooting my site when it shows blank page because of plugins. What I always do is ask my hosting provider via their chat features. Good thing they always help me.
Need not to auto update… Sometimes it takes some itchy stuff
Well….this is why I can’t recommend your services for updating websites enough – I would get stuck with this problem on a Saturday night – now what???? Site down until Monday A.M> when I can call a developer who can figure out how to fix it for me….. or I spend hours (and I do mean hours) researching what to do – figuring out how to restore the backup that I’ve so carefully got of the site and hope I can get it back to up and running ..
For me it’s a no brainer – unless you really love fiddling with your site – hire an expert to do the updates for you and spend your time building your business instead 🙂
Happened with me when I was installing a custom plugin downloaded in ZIp format from a site.
really great explain thanks for posting this and i was also facing this problem thanks again now my problem get solved….
This is one of the most common problem with WordPress, when you use too many plugins. I recommend not to update WordPress as soon as it is available.
thank your for this informations.
I think it’s important that people learn WordPress and cPanel basics. It’s true you can get around without knowing or understanding anything in the beginning but it’s only a question of time when you face a real problem. If you don’t learn these things you risk to lose all your hard work one day.
Sometime my site breaks due to some errors in plugin. But i doesn’t hold enough knowledge about this and contact hosting provider. This was happened when i install some security plugins like bulletproof security and my blog got break. Anyway thanks
I always try to re-install the plugin from scratch and if it doesn’t work yet then I simply uninstall it and find some alternative of that.
Thanks for this help. I have actually hear people talk of how they can’t install some plugin because it can break. And this is because they do not know what to do if such a thing happens. It has ever happened to me and I had to uninstall it and then installed again after some days.
There are number of things I do on breaking my WordPress website. The first attempt is to open it, and learn where I have made mistake. Such as editing on a live website, always throw errors of php code. So I always take backup of the files and quickly restore it.
If some plugin goes south, I normally access the website document directory and rename the recently installed plugin to disable it temporary in WordPress.
I’ve had plug-ins cause some serious issues in the past, particularly with Themeforest themes. I’ve only had a few minor issues with my StudioPress themes but most of the time, the issues occur when I updated to the latest version of WP. Now, I back up everything before WP updates.
The first thing that I am going to do check for the dependency plugins on the broken plugins. Then later take the decision as per the plugin.
Hi Nile
This is one of the most common problem with WordPress. chances are the some plugin might create a problem. I recommend not to update WordPress as soon as it is available.