Know how to fix WordPress plugin conflicts, what makes WordPress so great is that it supports a huge number of plugins. Plugins allow you to create a website that suits your needs without using complex code. However, installing too many plugins without checking them for authenticity and compatibility can be a reason for lots of errors, irregularities, and site crashes.
How to Fix WordPress Plugin Conflicts
Every plugin comes from a different developer, and it’s nearly impossible to be sure if the codes of one do not conflict with the other. It is likely that once in a while, by updating your plugins, installing new ones, or changing your theme, your website experiences plugin conflicts.
How to fix WordPress plugin conflicts? To fix the conflicts, you must know how and where they occurred. So, in this guide, we will look at how to diagnose your website for plugin conflicts, identify the problem, and methods how to fix it.
How does plugin conflict occur?
Plugins are the coded software that lets you add and modify features to your website or blog on WordPress. The Blog Starter has all the details that you need to manage your WordPress blog, from choosing the theme to using plugins. However, too many plugins can lead you to experience plugin conflicts.
There are three ways that plugin conflict usually occurs:
- One plugin’s code conflicts with another plugin
- A plugin conflicting with your installed theme
- A plugin conflicting with the core WordPress files
Symptoms of a conflict
To identify that the error or irregularity you are experiencing is a plugin conflict, you can check for the following things:
- Some elements on your website might disappear, like forms, navigation menus, pages, tabs, etc., after you update an existing plugin or install a new one.
- Elements supported by any plugin, like a form, advertisement, banner, etc., might behave irregularly when interacting with it.
- The website unreasonably slows down after a bulk update.
- Your website crashes, and you cannot access your dashboard anymore.
Let’s see how to fix these issues.
Steps to fix Plugin conflicts manually
There are two ways that you can solve this problem. First, let’s talk about the manual methods you can use to identify and resolve conflicts. However, if you see a white blank screen and can’t access your site’s dashboard, we’ll look into an FTP method to fix this.
1 – Clear cache and create a staging site
It is likely that after updating a plugin, codes of its previous version are still active in your browser cache. These outdated codes can conflict with the new ones. So the first step is to clear your browser’s cache.
So, you can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Delete if you are on windows and Option + Command + E if you are on Mac. In addition, you can simply click on clear data or empty it when a pop-up appears.
Once you have cleared your cache, check if the problem persists. If the problem is still there, it is either due to the theme conflicting with a plugin or installed plugins conflicting with each other. Please make a staging site to proceed further because we will be making massive changes to the website now. Whatever changes you make on a staging site won’t reflect on your actual website. This lets you experiment without actually risking the original site.
Once you create a staging environment, we can proceed with the next step.
2 – Diagnosing the theme
You first need to check if it’s the theme conflicting with any plugins. Then, all you need to do is deactivate your existing theme and activate one of WordPress’s default themes. WordPress themes are simple, with clean code and the highest quality.
So, check if the problem persists or goes away after switching to a default WordPress theme. If the problem goes away, perhaps you need to reconsider your theme. Then, you can look for another theme, run diagnostics with it and see if it works for you.
However, if your website is too invested in the theme, you can check for the plugin that’s causing the problem by following the next step.
3 – Diagnose the plugin
For this step, you need to deactivate all your plugins first. To deactivate them all at once on your dashboard, simply go to Plugins > Installed Plugins. Then, you can click on the plugin checkbox to select all the plugins at once. Now choose Deactivate from Bulk Options and click on Apply.
This will deactivate all your installed plugins. To check which plugin was causing the problem, simply reactivate them one at a time. This will let you narrow down the plugin that conflicts with other plugins or themes.
There are 3 ways to deal with a conflicting plugin:
- You can either roll back the plugin to its previous version. For example, you can use a WP Rollback plugin that takes the plugin back to its previous version. This should solve the problem for you.
- Other users have likely faced the same issue, and it got resolved too. You can check for this on trusted forums or the plugins support forum section.
- You can delete the plugin and replace it with a better one.
Using an FTP Program
If you cannot access your dashboard and your site crashes, you can use an FTP program to access your site’s file and deactivate your theme or plugin. Follow these steps to access your site’s file using an FTP program:
- Install an FTP program like FileZilla FTP or Cyberduck on your system.
- Using your cPanel, retrieve your FTP credentials. In your cPanel, click on the FTP Accounts and scroll down to the Configure FTP Client. This shows your FTP credentials like username, server, and port (21). Copy them.
- Go to your FTP program, paste these credentials into their respective boxes, and click Quick Connect.
- You will see a lot of directories. For example, open the folder named public_html and then click its subfolder named wp-content. Here you can see the Plugins folder.
- To deactivate all the plugins, click on them and rename them to inactive plugins. This will disable all your plugins, and you will be able to access your dashboard.
- From your dashboard, you can simply reactivate your plugins one at a time, as we did manually in step three, and follow the same approach.,
You can do this same process to deactivate your theme as well.
Wrapping up
To avoid plugin conflicts in the future, use minimal plugins. For example, do not use outdated plugins and do receive regular updates. Another effective way of avoiding conflict is to avoid bulk updates.
Do not panic if your website behaves irregularly due to plugin conflicts. As you saw, it is fairly easy to resolve a plugin conflict. Even if your website crashes entirely due to it, you can easily correct it using an FTP program.
