How to troubleshoot conflicts in WordPress

Your website is like a clock. A clock is made up of lots of little gears that all mesh together to perform one function. All the cogs are reliant on each other, and if one cog doesn’t work, then it can stop the entire clock from working. The cogs of a website consist of the theme, WordPress itself, and various plugins. However, all of these components are complex and in-depth, and they don’t always work with each other. This can cause what’s known as a conflict.

There are many causes for plugin and theme conflicts, but most of the time there will be the same solution and process to resolve it. This article will explain how you can troubleshoot conflicts affecting your WordPress website.

Step One: Don’t Panic when you troubleshoot conflicts.

Whilst it might not seem very productive to resolving the issue, it’s so much more beneficial to approach the problem with a calm and collected mindset. It is very likely that this conflict won’t be your fault, and even if it is… it doesn’t matter – everything can be fixed. A lot of the issues you face will generally come down to bugs in updates, or newly installed software.

Step Two: Check your website is fully updated.

Sometimes an error on your website caused by a theme or plugin will already have a fix. If the authors are already aware of this, they may have put out a patch update. If you aren’t running the most recent update of that plugin or theme, you may find this is the cause of your problems. In your dashboard, look on the left sidebar for Updates. If there are no updates available, then proceed to Step Three. If there are updates available, then action them and check if your issue has been fixed. You may need to clear your caches or check in an Incognito tab to see if the update has worked.

Step Three: Use Health Check and Troubleshooting

If your issue persists, then it’s time to call in for some backup. Health Check and Troubleshooting (HCaT) is a great WordPress plugin that gives you all the tools and help you need to troubleshoot on your WordPress website.

Health Check and Troubleshooting

Download Here

As well as helping you to troubleshoot issues you are aware of, HCaT will run a number of checks and scans itself to help detect any further issues unbeknownst to you. There is an included debug section, allowing you to view information related to your WordPress and Server Configuration, as well as a Tools area, which will check that your WordPress files are not tampered with, and a number of other details. However, you are interested in the Troubleshooting section.

Hover over Plugins on the left sidebar, then click on Add New. Search for Health Check and Troubleshooting using the search bar provided. Install the plugin, then once installed, click activate. Once the plugin has been activated, navigate to Tools and the Site Health.

In the Site Health section you will see four tabs along the top. You want to get to Troubleshooting. However, if you see a notice in the Info or Status tabs, you must see to them before continuing.

Step Four: Enter Troubleshooting Mode

Once in the Troubleshooting tab, you’ll want to enter Troubleshooting Mode. Troubleshooting Mode is a way to experiment with certain elements of your website without them affecting the front end. it will not affect anything for your visitors and will only be active for you. Please read the notice on the Troubleshooting Tab (shown below) before continuing.

Once Troubleshooting mode has been enabled, all of your plugins will disabled (for you only) and your theme will revert to a default theme. Now, check for the issue whilst all plugins are deactivated – to confirm that a plugin or theme is causing the issue.

Step Five: Check your theme

You are now going to test if the theme is causing the issue. You should be redirected to an adapted version of your home tab. Look for Available Themes, then find your preferred theme, and press switch to this theme. For those using child themes, please only activate the parent theme for now. You must test if the parent theme is causing your issue before testing if the child theme is. Furthermore, if your chosen theme needs a plugin to be active in order to work, you must also activate those at this time too.

Now, test your issue. If the issue is present, there is an issue with your theme. You should contact the theme authors to report the error. If not, either repeat this with your child theme enabled or continue to step six.

Step Six: Check your plugins

Navigate to plugins, then to installed plugins. Hover over the first disabled plugin and click enable whilst troubleshooting. Check to see if the issue is still present and if it is then contact the plugin author to report the bug.

Step Seven: Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.

This next step may prove a little tedious. If you are still experiencing your error, you need to enable and test each plugin individually until you identify the plugin that causes the issue. Once you identify the plugin (or plugins) that conflict, activate all plugins possible to run your website without errors. Now you can disable troubleshooting mode. Disable the theme or plugin from outside of troubleshooting mode and double check that it works. You should now contact the plugin or theme authors to file a report.

How can you avoid conflicts all together?

The best way you can troubleshoot conflicts and avoid them all together on your live website is by using a staging website. A staging website is a duplicate of your website that is placed on a separate domain or subdomain that acts as a playground for you to make updates, test things and troubleshoot conflicts before they happen on your live website.

The trouble is some web hosts don’t offer staging areas, which means this isn’t always possible for everyone who is on a budget. However, on selected WordPress Hosting plans by The Elite Web Co., you’ll get a one-click testing site included meaning that you can troubleshoot conflicts, make big changes to your sites structure and add various functions without the fear of breaking your live website.

With our staging sites you’ll be able to quickly duplicate your production website to the staging website, and once you’re ready you’ll also be able to push your staging website onto your production website.

To Conclude…

Hopefully, after trying some of the solutions above, or contacting and filing a report, you will have found a resolution to your issue. Another useful tool (if for whatever reason, you’re still experiencing issues) is the internet. There are many help articles, forums and support teams all over the internet that are ready to help you troubleshoot conflicts at a moments notice.