Websites are one of the lifelines of a business. So what happens when a WordPress plugin causes that lifeline to flatline? Yes, it’s normal for the first answer to this question to panic. But after the initial shock, it’s important to know how you can get your website back up as fast as possible.

WordPress plugin conflicts are a headache, but luckily, pretty easy to fix. For a guide on how to fix (and prevent) them, follow the steps below.

Why do WordPress Plugins Break?

WordPress plugins break for many reasons.

Think of it this way: your WordPress site does not have a single developer, but many developers working independently of one another with little or no direct communication.

This includes:

• The platform that powers WordPress (PHP, MySQL, your web server, and more)
• WordPress itself (also known as the “WordPress core”): it’s open source and has many contributors
• Your website’s base theme (and any other kinds of frameworks that make development easier)
• Customizations to your website’s theme: the work likely done by you and your own developers
• … and finally, each and every plugin that you install on your website.

Most of the time, this system works just fine. But when considering that there are so many moving parts that are constantly receiving software updates (or sometimes far worse: not receiving updates), it becomes easy to understand why code conflicts often emerge.

Recognizing the Symptoms of a Broken Plugin

Plugins are designed to solve problems on your WordPress site. But like any technology, they can easily cause you problems, too. In fact, for most WordPress users, a broken plugin is usually the source of pain.

Here are some clues that you may have a broken plugin:

• A blank white page
• A message that states 500: Internal Server Error
• Other PHP or SQL errors appearing on the page
• Content has missing style information (colors, fonts, spacing, etc.)
• The page layout appears otherwise broken
• Issues logging into the WordPress admin area

When WordPress websites break, a broken plugin is usually the reason.

How to Collect WordPress Plugin Debug Information

Before restoring backups or deactivating plugins, it’s important to gather clues about what’s broken.

Look Closely at the Page First

Let’s not make this more complicated than it has to be! Sometimes, the answer is staring you in the face.

Sometimes, plugins will spit out clear, specific errors that mention (1) a path to a file with an error and (2) a subtle reference to the line number that encountered an error.

Here is an example of the default-style PHP error message:

Error: cannot redeclare brokenfunction().php: /var/www/html/wp-plugins/mybrokenplugin/mybrokenfile.php:1234

This one line is packed with information! It tells you:

• mybrokenplugin: Each plugin has its own folder, and it’s usually named like you would expect. You now know where the problem is.
• mybrokenfile.php:1234: The exact file where the error occurred. In this case, the problem can be found on line 1234. 
• Error: cannot redeclare brokenfunction().php: This is just one of many very common problems… in this sample, two different plugin developers were lazy about naming things and chose the exact same function name. 

Of course, this is just one of many possible examples. Plugin authors can write their own error output too, so it may not look exactly like this.

Also, some errors may involve multiple files, resulting in what’s known as a stacktrace. This can cause the entire page to fill with errors. If you see this, don’t panic: there’s still usually just one very simple, straightforward way to fix the issue.

Tell WordPress to Provide the PHP Errors of Your Plugins

If you’re staring at a blank or otherwise broken page with no errors, you probably need to enable error reporting inside WordPress.

WordPress makes error reporting easy: open up the file wp-config.php and look for a line like this one.

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

If it doesn’t exist yet, add it.

Also, make sure that it’s not already there but commented out by being preceded by “//” or “/*”. In such a situation, just remove the commenting.

The website should now display errors directly on the page, as discussed above. If this is a production website and you’d prefer to be more discreet, you can also try storing errors in a log file instead.

To do so, add two additional lines to wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );

define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

The first line will store PHP errors across the whole website in the file /wp-content/debug.log.

The second line will disable presenting such errors on the website for your users.

BONUS: Pressable customers can access their WordPress logs directly in their my.pressable.com panel! Learn more here.

Review Your Server Error Logs

Any managed WordPress hosting provider should be able to provide server-side error logs. These logs capture critical server-level issues—such as memory limit errors, PHP crashes, or permission problems—that WordPress debug mode might miss.

BONUS: Pressable customers can find all of the server-level logs directly in their my.pressable.com panel! Learn more here.

Review Your Browser Error Console for Plugin Problems

The steps above gave us total visibility into what’s going wrong on the server. But what about in your browser? Problems happen there, too.

Open your browser’s developer tools (usually F12) and check the Console and Network tabs. These can reveal JavaScript errors, missing images, and inaccessible stylesheets—all issues that aren’t visible in your WordPress logs but may point directly to a misbehaving plugin.

If you see red error messages here, be sure to expand them to see the files that are causing issues. Just like we discussed above, plugins tend to live inside a unique folder beneath /wp-content/ on your website and should be easy to identify based on virtually any kind of problem.

Prepare Before You Troubleshoot

It’s tempting to dive right into making changes when your website is broken. Your blood pressure may spike, and rational thinking usually goes out the window.

Before taking the next step, consider taking a fresh backup of your website. You may also want to consider testing any changes on a staging website to first confirm that you are not introducing new problems.

BONUS: All Pressable customers get free backups and can instantly spin up staging websites using their my.pressable.com panel! Learn more here.

How To Fix Your WordPress Site After a Plugin Breaks It

Now that you’ve gathered all the error information that you can, it’s time to start troubleshooting. If you’re still not sure that there is one offending plugin to blame, fear not. We’ll account for that, too.

Try Updating Everything First

The most frequent cause of plugin troubles on WordPress is simply that the WordPress core, a plugin, or your base theme is outdated.

Update WordPress Core

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Dashboard > Updates.
3. If an update is available for WordPress core, you’ll see a message with a button labeled “Update Now”.
4. Click the button and wait for the update to complete.

Keeping WordPress core current ensures your site stays compatible with modern plugins and themes—and avoids known bugs or vulnerabilities.

Update Plugins

1. In the Dashboard > Updates section, scroll to the Plugins area.
2. Select the plugins you want to update.
3. Click “Update Plugins.”
4. If you suspect one plugin is causing the issue, try updating it individually and test the site afterward.

If a plugin fails to update, you may have indirectly discovered the root of your issue! At that point, it’s probably a good idea to disable the plugin if you can and contact the developer for support.

1. Still in Dashboard > Updates, look for the Themes section.
2. If your active theme has an available update, select it and click “Update Themes.”

Update Your Base Theme

An outdated theme can create conflicts with plugins, especially if it uses custom functions or template overrides.

Disable Problematic Plugins

If you still have access to the WordPress admin area, you can disable the badly behaved plugin.

1. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins
2. Find the plugin you suspect is causing the issue
3. Click Deactivate

This immediately turns off the plugin without deleting any of its data or settings.

In some situations, this may fail. Or, you may not be able to reach this interface. Fear not! If this describes your situation, you can disable the plugin by renaming the folder.

1. Navigate to /wp-content/plugins/
2. Find the folder for the plugin you want to disable
3. Rename the folder—add -disabled to the end (e.g., seo-plugin → seo-plugin-disabled)

WordPress will automatically deactivate the plugin and recognize it as brand new. Once your site is accessible again, you can choose whether or not you’d like to figure out where the plugin went wrong or dump it altogether.

Seek Official Support

After your website has been brought back online, the natural next step is to seek support from the plugin vendor. Of course, this can take time, which is why we first focused on fixing your website.

You may find that the plugin vendor has since ceased operating; such is the nature of having a completely open community of developers, projects come and go more frequently.

When contacting your plugin vendor, be sure to provide them with a clear description of what occurred and all of the exact error messages that you were able to retrieve.

Get More Support from the Experts

If you continue to struggle with a broken website, it’s possible that your problems are more complex.

Pressable customers can take advantage of the Automattic team of experts: the same company that brought you WordPress itself. All of our managed WordPress hosting plans include truly incredible support on a platform where, despite the natural headaches of development, WordPress just works.