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Fix My WordPress Site — WordPress Repair and Troubleshooting
Broken after an update, locked out of wp-admin, or throwing errors nobody can explain — these are known faults with known fixes.
WordPress fails in a small number of recognisable ways. Below is what each one actually looks like, what causes it, and how it gets fixed — so you can tell which one you have before you contact anybody.
Sound Familiar?
What I'll Do
What makes WordPress repair different
A generic "broken website" fix looks at the server. WordPress faults usually are not server faults — they are conflicts between core, a theme, and thirty or forty plugins that were each written by different people and updated on different schedules.
That means the diagnostic method is different. The question is rarely "is the server healthy?" and almost always "which of these components changed, and what did it break?" A plugin can be perfectly good code and still take a site down because it assumed a PHP version or a function that no longer exists.
The other difference is that WordPress keeps most of its state in the database, not in files. A restore that only recovers files will not fix a corrupted options table, and a lot of "we restored the backup and it's still broken" comes from exactly that.
The specific faults, and what each one means
Find the one that matches your symptom. Each has a distinct cause and a distinct fix.
- 1
Broken after an update
Core, theme or plugin updated and the site changed or died. Usually a fatal error from a removed function, or a template file the theme overrode being replaced. Fix: identify the updated component from the log, roll it back, then resolve the incompatibility properly rather than leaving auto-updates off forever.
- 2
Plugin conflict
Two plugins hooking the same thing, or one loading a different version of a shared library. Symptoms are often bizarre and intermittent — a button that stops working, an admin screen that half-renders. Fix: bisect by selective deactivation on a staging copy, never on the live site.
- 3
Theme problem
Layout collapses, styles vanish, or changes to the theme do not appear. Frequently an unenqueued stylesheet, a child theme whose parent updated underneath it, or edits made directly to a parent theme that an update then overwrote. Fix: restore via a proper child theme so it survives the next update.
- 4
White screen of death
A blank page and nothing else. This is a PHP fatal error with error display switched off — the error exists, you just cannot see it. Fix: enable logging, read the actual fatal, address it. Detail in WordPress white screen of death.
- 5
Locked out of wp-admin
Password resets that never arrive, a redirect loop on the login page, or a role that lost its capabilities. Causes range from a broken mail configuration to a corrupted user-meta row to a security plugin locking your own IP out. Fix depends on which — see WordPress login help.
- 6
Malware or unexpected redirects
Site redirects to somewhere else, usually only for visitors from search results and not when you visit directly. This is a compromise, not a bug, and patching the symptom does not remove the attacker's access. Fix: proper cleanup — website malware removal.
- 7
WooCommerce checkout problem
Checkout hangs, payment fails, or orders are created without payment. Often a gateway plugin conflict, a failing callback URL, or aggressive caching applied to pages that must never be cached. Fix: WooCommerce checkout repair.
- 8
Failed migration
Site moved host and now shows a mix of old and new URLs, broken images, or a redirect to the previous domain. Almost always serialised data in the database that a find-and-replace corrupted. Fix: a proper serialisation-aware search and replace, not a SQL dump edit. See migrating WordPress to a new host.
- 9
Database corruption
Errors mentioning a specific table, or content that disappears and reappears. Often follows a disk-full event or an unclean shutdown. Fix: repair the affected tables, verify integrity, and find out what caused it — a full disk that filled once will fill again. See server out of disk space.
- 10
PHP version incompatibility
The host upgraded PHP and an old theme or plugin stopped working. Very common on sites that were quiet for a year. Fix: identify what is incompatible, update or replace it, and only then move PHP forward — rolling PHP back is a temporary measure, not a resolution.
What I need to start
- The site URL and the symptom, ideally with a screenshot of the error.
- WordPress admin access, or SFTP/hosting access if you are locked out of admin.
- Hosting control panel access for error logs — this is where the actual cause lives.
- Whether anything changed recently: an update, a migration, a new plugin, a host change.
- Create a dedicated admin account rather than sharing yours, and delete it afterwards.
How the work is done safely
- Backup first, files and database, off the server, before any change.
- Diagnose on a staging copy where the fault allows it, so the live site is not the test bed.
- Change one thing at a time. Deactivating fifteen plugins at once tells you nothing about which one was responsible.
- Fix the cause. Turning off auto-updates stops the symptom recurring and guarantees you will be insecure in six months. That is not a fix.
- Written summary of what was wrong, what changed, and what to watch for.
WordPress repair questions
My site broke right after an update. Can it be rolled back?
Usually yes — the updated component can be reverted to its previous version to restore the site quickly. That is the first move, not the last one: the underlying incompatibility still needs resolving or the next update repeats it.
How do I know if it's a plugin conflict or something else?
The error log usually names the file, which names the plugin. Where it does not, selective deactivation on a staging copy isolates it. Guessing by deactivating everything at once on the live site is how people lose a morning.
I'm locked out of wp-admin. Is my site hacked?
Usually not. Far more often it is a mail configuration that cannot send the reset email, a security plugin that has blocked your IP, or a corrupted user record. A compromise normally shows other symptoms too, like redirects for search visitors.
Will I lose content?
No. A backup is taken before anything is touched. In the rare case a site is too damaged to back up cleanly, you will be told that before work starts, not after.
Can you fix it without taking the site offline?
Usually yes. Most WordPress repairs happen on a staging copy or are quick enough that no maintenance window is needed. Where downtime is genuinely unavoidable, it is agreed in advance.
Do you do ongoing WordPress maintenance?
Yes — updates, backups, monitoring and security handled on a schedule so this stops being a recurring emergency. See monthly website maintenance.
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