Why Did My Site Break?
I bet it's safe to say that many of us have experienced a broken site. You've done everything right. You updated your plugins and WordPress when your alerted.
And then one day your site is all messed up. Queue small panic attack.
Natural, but no need to panic. 9 times out of 10 when this occurs there is a conflict with one of your plugins.
Take me for example. When WordPress made its latest core update to 5.8 my sites looked perfect on the desktop. But when you viewed it on mobile my site did not display correctly at all.
The homepage was all wonky. And on my blog, the header broke out of the confines of the theme. Plus, other things.
So of course, I had my mini panic attack. But I knew that with this latest core update one of my plugins was not playing well with WordPress.
Also, a broken site can happen when you update a plugin or install a new plugin.
To check, simply disable the plugin you just updated or installed. If the problem goes away you know it's that plugin causing the issue.
And this happens because the plugin was coded poorly to begin with. Or the plugin is coded fine, it just has not been updated by the developer and won't resolve until there is a update released.
The other way a site breaks is like what happed to me. All my plugins were up to date. It's when WordPress updated, I discovered this issue.
So now what?
Well, the solution is very simple.
The way you find out which plugin is causing the issue is to temporarily deactivate all your plugins and activate them one by one until you find the one that’s causing the issue.
For me it was my WPRocket plugin. But not the whole plugin. It was just one thing that was activated within the plugin.
So, all I had to do was contact WPRocket and they gave me the steps to check things. And what I discovered is it was a new beta feature that I had activated that was the culprit. Once I deactivated all was good.
Now I understand deactivating things can seem scary but don't worry, this is just a short term thing. You'll find it does not take long to find the issue.
Another thing you want to be sure of is that you are running the latest PHP on your site. Typically, you will get a warning in your WordPress dashboard when your PHP is out of date and needs to be updated. If you host here simply contact site support and they can update if for you.If you're not sure what version of PHP you're running simply go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Tools, the Site Health. At the top of the page, you will see the Info tab, click that and then click the dropdown arrow beside Server.
Hope this helps
I believe in you
Leo
Recent Comments
32
Thanks, Leo. Another's view on what is happening allows me to see that the sky really isn't falling. Sami
With PHP unfortunately WA doesn't feel the latest version 7.4 is needed not sure when they will update.
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7.4 has been out for ages yet WA feels they don't need to be up to date as others are.
I know 7.2 and 7.3 still work fine but not sure why WA feels it is not needed.
Yeah, I dont know why they don't. It took ages for WA to update the version before this, but to be fair. I have never experienced any issues.
My main big site is not hosted here so I can update things when needed. Not sure why WA is behind on this update. Heck it was rolled out in 2019.
PHP 7.4 brings lots of new features, syntax additions and fixes. Plus PHP 7.4 significantly boosts performance and improves code readability.
Maybe WA will catch up with the rest of the world in due time.
Hopefully, they will catch up with the rest of the world and I know as we have seen with many many members particularly those new here worry about their site not being able to go to 7.4.
WA is always saying how they are able to speed up our websites and boost performance tyet they can't or won't upgrade to 7.4 which I am lost as to why.
Wa I feel they need to keep up to date and haven't been doing so with these issues.
Thank for your response appreciated.
Yes true it still works but the point is why not update to current versions regardless if 7.2 or 7.3 still function.
I just sent site support a ticket to upgrade one of my sites from 7.2 to hopefully at least 7.3 waiting for their response.
I managed to get one site now on 7.4 waiting for the other 3 sites I have
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Thanks, very helpful post. I dont panic as much now when something does go wrong, 9/10 it can be fixed, it's just frustrating when you got other things to be getting on with. One of the great things about being at WA, you can find a solution, like this blog post and support. thanks
Agreed, and it always seems to happen when you're the busiest.