WordPress is one of the most well know CMS (Content Management Systems) that are available for free dynamic website building. Sometimes there might be some errors, that must be solved quickly in order your website to work properly. Below are some troubleshooting techniques for the most common WordPress errors that can help you solve them quickly and easily.
Restore the default theme
Some themes add custom features on your website that can sometimes cause errors. This troubleshooting technique is the first you can try if your website presents problems. To determine if an error is related to a theme, you have to change your chosen theme in the default/original WordPress theme. If the error is solved, you may want to find and install a new theme for your website because the previous one caused problems.
You can change your website's theme by going to Appearance > Themes from the WordPress control panel. If the problem is more serious and you can not access your control panel, then you should turn off your chosen theme through cPanel > File Manager or an FTP client program. Navigate to the themes folder and rename your current theme to something different. This way your website's theme will change automatically to the default WordPress theme.
Disable plugins
Sometimes plugins might cause problems to other plugins and make your website nonfunctional or even to not load properly. The simplest troubleshooting technique is to disable all your plugins. If this solve your problem then the next step is to enable your plugins one-by-one and checking your website every-time you enable a plugin. When you determine the plugin that causes the problem it would be good to delete it or try to find an updated version that solves the problem. Alternately you may need to find a new plugin with the same functionality.
Sometimes some problems caused by plugins may prevent you from even login to the control panel of your website. If you do not have access to the control panel, there is still a way to disable your plugins. Use the cPanel > File Manager or a program through which you will have to rename the plugins folder to something different. This will disable all the plugins on your website.
Enable debugging
By enabling debugging, it will be more easy to find what causes a problem to your website. To enable debugging you will have to set the following parameters as true inside the wp-config.php settings file.
| define( 'WP_DEBUG', true ); |
Enable debugging. |
|---|---|
| define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); |
Log errors in the wp-content/debug.log file. |
| define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true ); |
Show errors inside the page where happen. |
404 File not found error
When you see an error that a file is not found, then you will see the full path to the file that is missing. Navigate to this path through the cPanel > File Manager or an FTP client and make sure that the file actually exists. Remember that filenames are case sensitive. For example the path example.com/Debug-Article.html is not the same path as the example.com/debug-article.html. These type of errors usually happen when you enable the Permalinks. The restoration of the permalinks usually fixes the problem.
