Aj Khandal

Menu
Request Quote
Call Now

Identifying and Fixing Plugin Conflicts: A Developer’s Proven Method

It’s the dread of every WordPress site owner. You click "Update" on a few plugins, the wheel spins for a moment, and suddenly—blank screen. Or perhaps your site loads, but the layout is completely broken, or a crucial feature like your checkout page has stopped working.

If your site broke immediately after changing something, you almost certainly have a WordPress plugin conflict.

As a WordPress developer, I deal with this weekly. The difference between a stressful afternoon and a 10-minute fix is having a systematic approach. Don't just start randomly deactivating things hoping for the best.

This guide will walk you through the exact methods developers use to isolate the culprit, from beginner-friendly tools to advanced debugging techniques for when you are locked out of your dashboard.

Stylized image showing a broken WordPress logo with colorful, tangled cables representing plugin conflicts, sparks, and a blurred computer screen in the background displaying an error message.

STOP! Read This Before You Do Anything Else

The Golden Rule: Backup First

Before you start troubleshooting, you must ensure you have a recent backup of your site (both files and database). We are about to turn things off and on, and occasionally, things can get worse before they get better. If your hosting provider takes daily backups, ensure you know how to restore one. If not, take a manual backup now if your dashboard is accessible.

Understanding the Types of Conflicts

Not all conflicts are the same. Understanding what you are facing helps determine the fix:

  • Plugin vs. Plugin: Two plugins are trying to do the same thing or are using incompatible code libraries.
  • Plugin vs. Theme: A plugin is interfering with your theme’s layout or functionality.
  • Plugin vs. PHP Version: You are running an old plugin on a new server, or a new plugin on an old server.

Here is the step-by-step process to find the root cause.

Scenario A: You Can Still Access Your WP-Admin Dashboard

If your site looks broken on the front end but you can still log into the back end, count yourself lucky. This is the easiest scenario to fix.

Method 1: The “Safe Mode” Approach (Recommended for Live Sites)

If your site is receiving live traffic, you don’t want to break it further for your visitors while you test. The best tool for this is the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin by the WordPress community.

  1. Go to Plugins > Add New and install Health Check & Troubleshooting.
  2. Once activated, go to Tools > Site Health > Troubleshooting Tab.
  3. Click the button that says “Enable Troubleshooting Mode”.

Why this is brilliant: This mode disables all plugins and switches to a default theme only for your user session. Regular visitors to your site still see the live, broken version, while you see a clean slate.

  • If the problem disappears in Troubleshooting Mode: You know for sure it’s a plugin or theme conflict.
  • How to isolate it: In the troubleshooting menu bar at the top of your screen, start enabling your plugins one by one. Check your site after every single activation. As soon as the problem reappears, the last plugin you activated is the conflict culprit.

Method 2: The Bulk Deactivation Method (Classic Route)

If you don’t want to install a new plugin, you can use the classic method.

  • Warning: This will affect what your live visitors see.
  1. Go to the Plugins menu.
  2. Click the “Select All” checkbox next to “Plugin”.
  3. In the “Bulk Actions” dropdown, select Deactivate and click Apply.
  4. Check your site. It should look basic, but the specific “broken” error should be gone.
  5. Now, reactivate your plugins one by one. After activating each plugin, open your site in a new private/incognito browser window to verify if it still works. Repeat until it breaks.

Scenario B: The “White Screen of Death” (Locked Out)

This is scary. You hit update, and now you just see a white screen, a “Critical Error” message, or you can’t access /wp-admin at all.

Don’t worry, your data is likely safe. We just need to use developer tools to bypass the dashboard.

Method 3: Disable Plugins via FTP or SFTP

If you cannot access your dashboard, you need to connect to your server files using an FTP client (like FileZilla) or your hosting provider’s File Manager (cPanel).

  1. Connect to your site via FTP/SFTP.
  2. Navigate to the /wp-content/ folder.
  3. Find the folder named plugins.
  4. The Developer Trick: Right-click the plugins folder and rename it to plugins.deactivated.
  5. Try loading your WordPress dashboard immediately.

Did it let you in? If yes, WordPress couldn’t find any plugins to load, so it loaded without them. You have confirmed a plugin is blocking access.

To isolate the bad one:

  1. Go back to FTP and rename the folder back to plugins.
  2. Enter the folder. You will see a folder for every single plugin you have installed.
  3. Start renaming individual plugin folders one by one (e.g., rename elementor to elementor_OFF).
  4. Check your site after every rename. When your site comes back to life, the folder you just renamed contains the conflicting plugin.

Method 4: Enabling WP_DEBUG (The Developer’s Choice)

If you want to see exactly why the site is crashing instead of just guessing, you need to tell WordPress to show you the errors it usually hides.

  1. Connect via FTP and find the wp-config.php file in your site’s root directory.
  2. Edit the file and look for line that says: define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, false );
  3. Replace that line with the following code snippet:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

What this does: It tells WordPress to log all errors to a file called debug.log located inside your /wp-content/ folder.

Review that log file. Look for text that says “Fatal Error.” It will usually tell you the exact path to the plugin file causing the crash, which immediately identifies the conflict culprit.

(Remember to set WP_DEBUG back to ‘false’ when you are finished!)

You Found the Conflicting Plugin. Now What?

You’ve successfully isolated the “bad apple.” Your site works as long as that one specific plugin is deactivated. How do you fix it permanently?

  1. Update Everything: Are WordPress core, your theme, and the conflicting plugin all running the latest versions? Sometimes an update fixes the conflict.
  2. Rollback: If the issue started immediately after an update, use a plugin like WP Rollback to revert the problematic plugin to its previous version until the developer issues a patch.
  3. Check Support Forums: Go to the plugin’s page on WordPress.org and check the support tab. Others are likely facing the same issue, and there may already be a patch provided there.
  4. Find an Alternative: If the plugin is old, unsupported, or constantly causing issues, it’s time to find a modern replacement that does the same job.

Conclusion

Plugin conflicts are a frustrating rite of passage for every WordPress site owner. By following these systematic methods, you can move from panic to resolution quickly.

Are you stuck on a “Critical Error” screen and none of these methods are working?

Sometimes conflicts run deeper into the database or server configuration. If you need a WordPress expert to step in and safely resolve the conflict without risking your data, contact me today for emergency WordPress support

Need Help?