Maintenance, security, repairs, hosting and operational guidance for WordPress and WooCommerce.
View topic guides01 / GUIDE
Start with diagnosis, not random changes
When a WordPress site is down or behaving badly, the safest first step is to identify what changed and preserve a recovery route. Updating everything, deleting plugins or editing files directly on production can remove evidence and make a recoverable fault harder to untangle.
A controlled repair normally starts with backups or snapshots where available, error logs, recent changes, plugin and theme state, PHP compatibility, database health, DNS and SSL checks, and a clear reproduction of the fault.
If the website is business-critical and you need somebody to take responsibility for the diagnosis and repair, see PluginPip's WordPress website repair service.
02 / GUIDE
Common WordPress faults and what they can indicate
Typical faults include white screens, fatal PHP errors, 500/502/503 responses, plugin or theme conflicts, broken layouts after updates, slow admin areas, redirect loops, SSL problems, failed migrations, email delivery faults, database errors, compromised files and websites that only fail on certain devices or browsers.
The visible symptom is not always the root cause. A checkout failure can come from PHP, a payment integration, caching, JavaScript, a plugin conflict or an upstream service. A useful diagnosis narrows the fault before making irreversible changes.
03 / GUIDE
What information helps a developer diagnose the problem?
Record when the fault started, what changed immediately beforehand, the exact error message, affected URLs, whether wp-admin still works and whether the problem affects every visitor or only certain browsers, devices or logged-in users. Error logs, hosting events and recent deployment or update history can dramatically shorten diagnosis time.
Do not send passwords through an ordinary enquiry form or email thread. A professional repair process should provide a safer route for temporary or scoped access when it is actually needed.
04 / GUIDE
Repair or rebuild?
Most faults do not justify rebuilding an entire website. Repair makes sense when the site structure and codebase are fundamentally sound. Rebuilds become more attractive when the site is trapped on obsolete software, heavily modified without documentation, repeatedly compromised or so fragile that routine maintenance creates unacceptable risk.
A competent repair assessment should distinguish between a contained fault, accumulated technical debt and a platform that is no longer supportable.
05 / GUIDE
What a controlled professional repair should include
A strong repair process preserves a rollback route, isolates the fault, uses staging or another safe test path where practical, makes the minimum necessary change, validates the affected customer and admin journeys, and records what changed.
For one-off commercial work, PluginPip starts straightforward WordPress website repair from £95. Deeper investigation is agreed separately before additional paid work begins.