WordPress is awesome in the sense that with plugins we can turn it into whatever we want—a membership site, a lead generation machine, jobs portal, forum, almost anything.

But plugins can also spew trouble- especially plugin conflicts.

WordPress plugin conflicts can often cause your site to go down.

There are many factors that contribute to the problem. One— the plugin isn’t compatible with one or more plugins and this gives rise to a whole slew of problems.

That said, keeping every plugin updated as soon as there’s an update may do more harm than good.

This can cause compatibility issues as all other plugins might be working smoothly but the new update might cause compatibility issues leading to problems.

Avoid plugins that haven’t been updated in a long while.

You don’t need to choose plugins based on whether they’re updated every two weeks.

Also you don’t need plugins that haven’t been updated for more than 2-3 years years now. Both hold the highest potential for trouble.

But first let’s wrap our head around plugin conflicts and terminology.

Because the number of developers is so huge and there are little checks and balances it’s always possible that a plugin created by one developer will conflict with another.

There can be:

  1. Conflicts between two plugins.
  2. Conflicts between the theme and new plugin
  3. Conflict between the plugin and WordPress update
  4. Conflict between the plugin and an older version of WordPress.

Such plugins may not be compatible with the latest version of WordPress that you have installed.

To avoid that particular problem, use plugins from trusted developers or companies.

Most plugins quickly run of out of steam.

When developers see there’s no viable source of revenue they’re quick to wring their hands and discard development.

But you should make sure that the plugins you use are from credible sources so that they receive regular updates and are compatible with latest WordPress iterations.

The problems you face on your site

As a result of plugin conflicts you can face a number of problems on your site.

The site’s functionality may be affected. The site may stop working all together with the defamed white screen of death replacing what your site should have been.

Whatever may the trouble be you should know how to troubleshoot and solve the problem quickly, before things go out of control.

The steps outlined below will act as your guide and tip-book to avoid conflict, fix issues and ensure you don’t face similar problems in the future. I too have felt the effects of outdated plugins on my site and have worked hard to fix that.

Usually problems arise after batch updating plugins.

When you have a lot of plugins the easiest way to update WordPress core and plugins is to do a batch update where everything is updated in one go. That’s one beautiful thing regarding WordPress- the level of automation it brings to everyday life. However, when batch updating things you wouldn’t know which plugin update caused an issue with your site.


Generally if a theme is broken an error message gets displayed if things haven’t taken a turn for the worse.If you have a backup available relegate the site to the backup. See if that solves the problem. If it’s a batch update and you’re not clear which plugin might have caused problems follow the section below to get going:

Here are the steps to follow:

Start by activating plugins one after the other and see if the problem remains.

Test and see if the site is problem-free on activating this plugin.

Next go on activating plugins one by one and see if there’s an error message or the site reverts to its problematic first.

Each of the plugins you’ve installed has to be tested in this particular manner to test and see and arrive at the one causing the conflict.

You will certainly arrive at the one that’s causing the conflict. You can either deactivate it or revert to the older version of the same.

The white screen of death or situations where you’re not able to login

If you’re seeing the white screen of death for the first time, it can be a fairly distressing. The only solution to WordPress you know of is by logging in and you’re not able to now.

 

Go to your host’s control panel to access the particular site’s files. From the control panel deactivate all plugins by renaming the plugins folder to something else. The function won’t recognize the folder now.

You may also delete the files to deactivate the plugins. If you save backup folder with plugins in them you can reupload it back to the cpanel once again after everything is done and taken care of.

When you reupload the plugins back they won’t be reactivated.

Once the plugins are all deactive you may login to WordPress once again and follow the process as outlined above i.e. reactivate plugins one by one to test and see what happens.

You can also employ a plugin called Health Check to test plugins and themes.

After installing and activating Health check go to its menu and click on Health check. You will see additional options once you do that.

Errors on the site status or debug information tabs show issues that need to be resolved.