WordPress troubleshooting, for the bugs that aren’t a security issue
A plugin update broke your checkout page. A theme conflict is throwing a white screen. A contact form silently stopped sending emails three weeks ago and nobody noticed. That’s the kind of problem this page exists for: something functionally broken on your WordPress site that isn’t necessarily a security compromise, just a bug getting in the way of running your business.
This is the clear destination for that kind of issue, distinct from our dedicated Security and Malware Removal services, which handle compromise and vulnerability-specific situations. If you’re not sure which category your issue falls into, describe the symptom when you reach out and we’ll point you to the right service rather than making you guess.
Why root-cause diagnosis matters more than a quick fix
A common but costly pattern in WordPress troubleshooting is applying a generic fix that happens to make the visible symptom go away without actually understanding what caused it, deactivating plugins one by one until the error disappears, for instance, without determining exactly why that particular plugin conflict occurred. This can work as a stopgap, but it often leaves the underlying cause unaddressed, meaning the same or a related issue resurfaces later, sometimes in a different, harder-to-diagnose form.
We diagnose from actual evidence, server error logs, the specific timing of when the issue started relative to any changes made, and direct investigation of the affected functionality, rather than trial-and-error guessing.
Common issues we fix
A handful of patterns account for most of what we’re asked to diagnose.
Plugin conflicts after an update
Two plugins that worked fine independently suddenly interfering once one of them updates its underlying code, among the most frequent causes of sudden breakage.
White screen errors
Typically a PHP error, memory limit issue, or plugin conflict, the screen shows nothing useful, but server error logs usually reveal the actual cause clearly.
Broken contact forms
A visitor submits the form, sees a success message, and the message never arrives, silently costing leads for weeks before anyone thinks to check.
Layout breaks after an update
Visual elements break, disappear, or render incorrectly on some but not all pages, often a CSS or JavaScript conflict affecting only specific browsers or devices.
The value of telling us what changed
The single most useful piece of information in any troubleshooting request is what changed right before the issue started, a plugin update, a new plugin installed, a theme change, a hosting migration, or even something as small as a settings change in an admin panel. A vague “it just stopped working” report takes meaningfully longer to diagnose than “it broke right after I updated this specific plugin yesterday,” since the second version points diagnosis directly at the most likely cause.
Tell Us What’s Broken
Describe the symptom, when it started, and anything that changed around that time, that’s the fastest path to an accurate diagnosis, even if it seems like too small a detail to mention.