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How to Troubleshoot and Recover Your Broken WordPress Site

How to troubleshoot and fix a broken WordPress website.

The steps to troubleshoot and then, if required, restore a broken WordPress website depend on why you need to restore it in the first place. In addition, most hosting support will ask you if you went through this process before contacting them for help.

The following tips also apply to any indication of a possible conflict. Buttons are not working, the editor is not working, and posts are not saving. Anything that isn’t working correctly. By going through this process, you can eliminate a conflict as the cause. In most cases, you’ll discover the cause of the conflict, usually a plugin, so you can address it and get things up and running again.

First, some basic WordPress troubleshooting…

When WordPress updates, there are no guarantees that all the independently developed themes and existing plugins will work together without issue. WordPress is not responsible for ensuring it works with every theme, plugin, or code snippet.

The developers are responsible for ensuring that their products — themes and plugins — free or paid — work with WordPress and update as necessary. Using themes and plugins that are not kept up to date with WordPress releases is the primary reason a website will break and then must be “restored.”

What are the most likely causes?

  • Have you added any custom snippets to any of your PHP files recently?
  • Did you install any new plugins?
  • Have you switched themes?
  • Updated plugins or your website’s theme?
  • Your host isn’t using the recommended MySQL or PHP version.
  • Your site was hacked.

Sometimes, issues will resolve themselves if you resave your Permalinks. Go to Settings > Permalinks. Don’t make any changes — just page down and click Save Changes to see if that resolves the issue. If not, read on…

If you cannot login…

We will have to change directory names to deactivate them to at least login and determine the problem. By renaming a directory, that directory is no longer active in your WordPress installation.

Many times, when there is a conflict, you will get an error message that tells you which plugin is the culprit in the path of the error message. Look for that so you know which specific plugin directory to rename.

Does your hosting have cPanel? Within your cPanel, you’ll find your File Manager, where you can access and change file or directory names.

Another option is to use FTP software. For FTP software (File Transfer Protocol), you can download FileZilla. I use FileZilla and recommend it to my clients.

  1. Login to your server’s cPanel File Manager or via FTP.
    • Go to the “root,” which is generally the public_html directory.
    • Drill down to your wp-content directory. There, you will find the directory for plugins.
    • If you don’t know which plugin is at play, rename that directory (right-click > rename) from: plugins to: pluginsOFF. This will deactivate all plugins.
  2. Try to login again to your WordPress Admin.
    • If you can now login, you know a plugin is the bad actor. Stay in your dashboard and go back to your cPanel/File Manager or via FTP and reinstate the pluginsOFF back to plugins. You can now resume the plugin testing below.
  3. If you still cannot login and the issue persists after deactivating plugins, your theme or any customization to files or code you may have added may be at play.

Check WordPress Plugins First

Deactivate all your plugins, as noted above. Then check your site. If all is well, you know one of your plugins is causing a conflict. In my experience, plugins cause conflicts and break websites more than themes.

Next, reactivate plugins one by one. Then, check your site after reactivating each plugin to see if the issue is resolved to determine which plugin is causing the conflict. As soon as things don’t work, there’s a good chance the last plugin you reactivated is the cause of the conflict.

You want to regularly check that all your plugins are being tested up to the latest version of WordPress. If you see a nag bar similar to the one below on the plugin’s page in the WordPress Plugin repository — this is called a clue.

WordPress plugin not up to date warning!

When you see the above warning or something similar, that is an indication it is time to find a new plugin. One that is kept up to date by the developer.

Is Your Theme Compatible?

So, you’ve checked all your plugins, and your site is still broken. How do you know if it is your theme breaking your site? Check with the theme developer to see what version of WordPress the theme is tested up to.

You can verify if your theme is causing the problem by going to Appearance > Themes > then activating the WordPress default theme (Twenty Twenty-Three). If everything then functions correctly, you know it is probably your theme choking on the latest version of WordPress. Time for a new theme.

Common Question WordPress Site Recovery Questions

My theme is not compatible with the latest WordPress version; now what?

Don’t look back — look forward. Immediately contact your theme developer for assistance. If they are unresponsive, there is no time like now to get your site on a premium theme where you won’t have to worry about this again.

Install the new theme and customize it to your liking. In many cases, getting a theme compatible with the latest version of WordPress will “restore” your site. Then, all you’ll have to do is tweak widget layouts and image sizes.

Did the theme files I modified break the site?

In this case, you need to restore the original theme files before you modified them to the previous versions. Hopefully, you did those changes offline, not in the Theme Editor of WordPress. By offline, I mean downloading the file, making a copy, and then making the changes to have an original file copy to fall back on.

Adding snippets to the functions.php theme is something that, while sounding easy, can break your site—this is where a WordPress staging site comes in handy.

If you did use the Theme Editor to modify files, you should be able to go to a previous backup in your hosting account of the wp-content/themes/your-theme directory and FTP fresh copies of the files you changed that you can then FTP and overwrite the modified files on the server. This will undo your modifications and restore your site by replacing the revised versions with the originals.

Don’t have that backup? (I bet you will moving forward!) Check with your hosting company to see what backups they may be able to restore for you.

It is not my theme or my plugins? Now what?

It could be the update process was incomplete or corrupted. You’ll want to revert/restore your last functional site backup if this is the case. Most quality WordPress hosts make this easy with just a click or two.

Does my database/website need to be restored?

Quality Managed WordPress hosts allow you to create restore points before making changes or updates. Then, restore if necessary. If you are not on a Managed WordPress host, why not?

Check the backup you want to restore and click the Restore button. The next step will be to refresh your permalinks. Go to: Settings > Permalinks and click Save.

If you don’t have a backup, contact your hosting company. They may have a backup that they can restore for you. However, it is common for web hosts to charge a fee to do so.

Shared cheapo hosting doesn’t cut it for those serious about their WordPress website success. How do you access your backup copies if that server goes down? That’s why you need off-site backups.

Was my site hacked?

Run a security scan. If the scan shows that your site has been infected with malicious code, you probably need to bring in some help to determine the damage caused and what is required.

You can also contact your host to restore a previous site backup. When sites are hacked, you generally have to “clean” files (and your database) that have been modified to remove malicious code. Or do a complete restore from a past date pre-infection.

Moving Forward…

I mark my calendar to review all my plugins every quarter and replace those that are no longer being maintained. Yes, plugins may still work even if they are not up to the latest version of WordPress. However, the developers of those plugins should be updating their products to ensure compatibility — even if they still “work” — an update noting compatibility should be the least of their efforts.

The longer a plugin is not updated, the higher the risk of a conflict. Or security bugs that hackers can exploit. That means a PIA and downtime for you. There is no need to go through that when it can easily be avoided, right?

This is why I only use themes and plugins I know keep up with WordPress’s evolution and updates. I gravitate to premium themes, plugins, and services, as they are more apt to be kept updated and offer the support needed if any issues arise.

AUTOMATIC UPDATE TIP: If you have automatic WordPress updates turned on (I’m not a fan of auto-updates…), you’ll want to run through your website after you are notified that an update has occurred. Click around, fill out your forms, and ensure everything operates and displays correctly.

I prefer manual updates. This way, I can do a manual backup, update, check my site, and address any conflicts immediately. By taking this approach, I avoid my website being online and broken without my knowledge for any length of time.

WordPress Maintenance is Key

Make your life easier and dramatically reduce the opportunity for conflicts to arise by promptly and adequately updating as needed. Ignoring updates is a huge security risk, as most include security hardening. Then, make a point to review that your theme and plugins are regularly tested and compatible with each version of WordPress.

So, as you can see, using supported quality themes, keeping up with WordPress, and having a backup process (with restore functionality) in place facilitates your best chance for a hassle-free recovery.

At your service,

Judith: WordPress Consultant and Coach
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