How to debug WordPress issues
When there is an error or incorrect behaviors in your blog , you should look into basic troubleshooting of the issue first and remove the plugin/theme that is causing the issue. Your goal should not be into fixing the issue, even though you are a technical person or developer.
When there is an issue in your live blog, look for ways on how soon you can remove or disable the plugin or theme so the error will be prevented in the live site. Then later fix it yourself or with help from a developer, test it thoroughly before adding to your blog again.
Some of the easy ways to identify the source of the error is using the live error message if any, but most of the times when there is an error , WordPress throws a blank white screen that doesnt reveal the error, it is a secutiy measure so that hacker are not provided with the error details and whats compromised in your blog.
WordPress provides an option to enable the “debug” mode, which allows to reveal the error message which you can then capture and disable the debug mode once you are done troubleshooting.
Be default debug mode is set to false or the line is not present in w-config.php file.
Edit the wp-config.php file and change it to TRUE or add a new line with value as TRUE
define( 'WP_DEBUG', false); (default value)
Change to TRUE as given below or add this new line. Once done with debugging, remove this line.
define( 'WP_DEBUG',true);
Enabling debug mode will throw any errors in the pages directly which you can use for your troubleshooting to identify the source.
If you are not able to find out the source. Try these methods via admin panel.
- Change the theme to another theme from WordPRess repository.
- Disable the plugins you think are culprits or recently added/modified one by one until the error is cleared.
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