WordPress® All-in-One For Dummies®

Troubleshooting Plugin Problems

As you can imagine, with over 10,000 plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory, not every plugin is tested with every version of WordPress and every plugin and theme out there. There are billions of combinations of WordPress plugins; any combination might present a code conflict between two plugins or a plugin and a theme. Locating problems with a plugin takes some knowledge of PHP and basic error checking.

When attempting to troubleshoot a problem, having a methodical approach with a set of defined steps to follow is best. Start by documenting what the problem is and what caused it. Ask yourself some simple questions:

• Does anyone else have this problem? You can find the answer by going to the Forums page on WordPress.org or the plugin developer's support forum if he or she provides one. Figure 4-1 shows the Forums page for the All in One SEO Pack plugin. Search these support forums (and Google) to see whether anyone else has reported the problem and provided a resolution. If the problem is common, someone has identified a fix that you can implement.

  Sometimes problems are the result of a bug in the plugin code that will be fixed in a revision. However, if the problem is present only on your installation of WordPress, or if any fixes that worked for others don't work for you, then move onto the next four questions.

• Does an error message display in your WordPress Dashboard or on your Web site? If an error message displays, search the support forums ...