1. These WordPress troubleshooting tips will solve most common WordPress problems
  2. Problems include not being able to get to your site, getting random error messages, things changing, disappearing, or appearing unexpectedly, among others.
  3. Try them in order

Having trouble with WordPress?

If your website is currently fucked up, chances are one of these 6 WordPress troubleshooting tips will unfuck it.

For best results, I recommend completing these steps in order!

6 WordPress troubleshooting tips

Make sure your site is still online

WordPress Troubleshooting // 1 of 6

If you can’t get to anything on your site, that’s when you should try this.

If your site is down, then your best bet is to contact your Hosting provider. They’ll be able to give you a status report on your site, and possibly an ETA for when it’ll be back online.

If your site is up, then that means there’s not a root infrastructure problem, and you should continue to the next step.

Before continuing, take a backup first!

The rest of these WordPress troubleshooting tips make changes to your live site. Therefore, it’s incredibly important that you take a backup before continuing.

There are quite a few ways to take a backup of your site.

Some Hosting providers (my favorite, SiteGround, is a good example) have features which allow you to take quick backups. I’d suggest logging into your Hosting and checking there first.

Otherwise, a backup plugin will do the trick. I use the Pro version of Duplicator to keep my site backed up, but the Free version of Duplicator from the WordPress Repository will work too!

Install all updates

WordPress Troubleshooting // 2 of 6

Outstanding WordPress, plugin, and theme updates can be a source of problems. So, let’s make sure everything on your site is fully up to date.

Taking the time to complete this step can often save a lot of time spent working other WordPress troubleshooting tips down the line.

Check plugins — *Most common fix!*

WordPress Troubleshooting // 3 of 6

As the section heading says, most WordPress problems, and the need for any WordPress troubleshooting at all, arises from conflicts between a plugin and your site, your theme, or another plugin you’ve got installed.

The simplest way to check for this is to temporarily disable all plugins and see if the error resolves.

Here’s how to do that:

Disable all plugins

Disabling all plugins is the place to start.

If the problem is a plugin, use the Halving Method to quickly figure out which one

The Halving Method is a quick bonus technique for finding problems. It’s often used when coding to help narrow down trouble spots. It’s a WordPress troubleshooting tip within a WordPress troubleshooting tip ?

For our purposes though, it’ll help find problem plugins way faster than checking each one individually.

⚠ Note: This method is especially effective if you’ve got a lot of plugins installed. If you’ve only got a few (like in the screenshots below), checking one-by-one will work as well.

Temporarily switch to another theme

WordPress Troubleshooting // 4 of 6

If the problem persists after checking your plugins, the next thing to check is your theme.

You can do this by temporarily switching from the theme you’re using to a different one. Ideally, you’d switch back to one of the WordPress defaults.

By the way, I’d recommend that you leave all plugins disabled while you try this.

⚠ Note: The WordPress default themes are always the names of the years, but spelled out. e.g., Twenty Twenty-one, Twenty Twenty, Twenty Nineteen, etc.

Here’s how to switch:

Restore a previous backup

WordPress Troubleshooting // 5 of 6

If you’ve made it this far and haven’t located the problem, now might be the time to consider restoring a backup.

If you know when your site last functioned normally, you should select a backup that was made prior to that.

Instructions get a bit tricky here

Actual steps will vary depending on how you’re taking backups (you are taking backups at least daily, right?).

At minimum, your Hosting provider may have a backup solution that’s automatically enabled.

SiteGround, my preferred Hosting platform, takes automatic backups daily, and those backups can be restored with a single click.

Screenshot showing how to restore a backup in SiteGround • WordPress Troubleshooting Tips

If you’re curious to know more about why I pick SiteGround, take a look at my post on it.

Using quotes, Google the exact error

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Most WordPress problems are common. So common that they’ve been solved in lots of other blog posts and articles.

When I get stuck with a problem, a quick Google search is one of my go-to strategies.

A handy trick for improving your searches is to wrap the exact error in quotes.

A quick example:

Here’s a common WordPress error:

Screenshot showing a database connection error • WordPress Troubleshooting Tips

If I were unsure about how to solve this, I’d drop the following search into Google:

wordpress, "error establishing a database connection"

I did a couple things here:

First, I added “wordpress” to the beginning. This helps focus results on WordPress.

And second, I included the exact error, and I wrapped it in quotes. This forces Google to look for that phrase exactly.

⚠ Note: The comma is ignored by Google — it’s just a habit of mine to include it. Also, capital/lowercase letters don’t matter.

At this point, browse the first few results and see if they point you in the right direction.

Still stuck? Leave a comment!

If you’ve tried all of these WordPress troubleshooting steps and you’re still stuck, give me a shout in the comments below.

I will try my best to help guide you!

And, if the problem is bigger than the scope of the comments section, we can chat one-on-one about additional, and more advanced, WordPress troubleshooting tips for getting the problem fixed. In this case, head over to the Contact page and drop me a note!