When building a website, errors are bound to happen. Luckily, these errors are trouble-free to fix. A bug is simply an error in design that causes troubles on your website. This can cause incorrect results and improper functioning of your website. Resultingly, it disrupts your website’s visitors and can potentially drive them away from your brand. Hence, to debug your WordPress website can be beneficial.

Fortunately, these errors can be fixed within a few minutes. They’re such a minor change yet they can have such a huge impact on your visitors. No one likes malfunctioning websites. In the next few minutes, we will be going over two simple yet effective ways you can use to help debug your website. We’ll go over both how to do it manually from your cPanel, and automatically using a WordPress plugin.

Here’s how to debug your WordPress website!

So, what causes bugs in a WordPress website?

For the most part, WordPress doesn’t really cause problems often, nor without a reason. Although it might be frustrating at first, WordPress bugs can quickly be resolved if you understand its root. 

There can be many reasons that cause errors on your website, but the most common reason is when you have an issue with your website’s code. Another reason can be a faulty theme or plugin. Bugs can also be caused by changed URLs/broken links. 

No matter where the problem arises, it has a quick fix. 

How to debug your website

There are two ways that you can use to debug your website. The first way is by doing it manually. Here, you simply make a slight change to the code of your website. Although it might seem intimidating, it’s really straightforward and takes a few minutes.

If you’re a beginner and would rather not handle this problem by making changes to the code, you can use the second method. In this method, you simply install a plugin to your website and it does the job for you. 

Both the methods are equally effortless, but the choice is yours.

How to manually debug your WordPress website

Before we move on to how you can debug your website manually, you need to keep in mind that this should be done prior to your website going live. This makes sure that there are no existing issues on your website before your website is available to the public. This ensures a productive user experience.

Here’s how you can debug your website manually.

• Log into your cPanel

When signing up for a web host, you’re provided with credentials for your cPanel. Using the details, log into your cPanel. When you have logged in to your cPanel, open up your file manager.

• Navigate to the wp-configure.php file

To do this, you will need to find the folder that houses your WordPress installation files. In the root of this folder, you’ll find the wp-configure.php file. Right-click on it and select edit or click on it and select edit from the top of the page.

• Enable debug code

Once you have this file opened, you will need to navigate to the  

Define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, false ); code and replace the ‘false’ with ‘true’ so that it says define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );. Make sure that ‘true’ is not in quotations. In case you can’t find the code, you can simply create it. Select a blank space and write define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true ); in it. The debugging mode will not activate until you enter the code correctly. Once you’re done making this change, simply save changes and reload your website. Make sure that you change this code back to false before your website goes live.

There you go! You have successfully debugged your WordPress website.

How to debug using a plugin

In case you’re not comfortable messing with the code of your website, you can simply install a plugin from your WordPress directory that will do the job for you. There are quite a few plugins that you can use to debug your website, but you need to make sure that you only use one so that your website does not come across any compatibility issues. 

To debug your website using a plugin, you’ll need to follow the next few steps.

• Install a debugging plugin

First and foremost, you will need to install a plugin that can debug your website. You can choose any plugin, but a popular option that does the job well is called ‘Query Monitor’. It is an excellent free option that can handle things like data queries and PHP errors. It’s really easy to install the plugin. Simply open up your WordPress dashboard and hover over plugins, then select add new. From this page, search for the plugin you want to install and select install. Once done, simply activate the plugin. Next, click on the menu toolbar along the top and get started.

That’s how you debug a WordPress website using a plugin!

Conclusion

Even though coming across bugs on your website might be annoying, they are extremely straightforward to fix. Bugs are the last thing you want a customer to encounter when they visit your website.

Debugging is basically removing any errors that might occur on your website. Debugging your website is the last thing you should do before launching your website on the internet. This guarantees a satisfactory experience for your visitor. Today we reviewed two easy ways that you can follow to debug your WordPress website. The first one allowed you to fix these errors by making changes to the code, and the second one was simply by installing a plugin to your website.

We hope we helped you fix any problems you were encountering with your website!