Debugging WordPress: 10 Powerful Tips And Techniques

So, you have developed or upgraded your WordPress website. However, all your hard work and efforts will be in vain if its remains buggy or you were unable to handle it!

Luckily, there are many tips available for debugging WordPress out there that might solve your problem. How about we give a list of those tips to you so that you can immediately solve issues regarding your site with debugging.

In this article, we are going to provide you with 10 such powerful tips. Furthermore Debugging WordPress will become easier for you after going through this.

Tips and techniques for debugging WordPress

There are three types of PHP WP errors:

1. Notice: It is a normal WP error that you can get while using WordPress. Besides you can also get this error for making improvements in your WordPress site.
2. Warning: This WP error is more dangerous than Notice. So, you need to take the necessary steps to solve this type of WP errors.
3. Fatal error: This error is the most dangerous error in WordPress. It can also cause script termination to your site.

Let’s find out how to debug this WP errors.

Using debugging WordPress plugin:

There are many WordPress debug plugins that can essentially solve WP errors. Let’s introduce some notable ones.

Query monitor plugin:

It debugs database queries, hooks, and actions, enqueued scripts, block editor blocks, etc. Moreover, it provides your information in a useful way. This debugging WordPress plugin also provides many advanced features.

Simply Show Hook:

This debugging WordPress plugin will show you all the running action hooks on your site.

Debug Bar:

It will add a debug menu to your admin bar. Undoubtedly it is an essential plugin for WordPress developers.

WP_DEBUG:

This debugging WordPress plugin will trigger your WordPress Mode and switch on or off of your site’s debug mode. Besides it has two types WP_ DEBUG_DISPLAY and WP_DEBUG_LOG.

WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY:

It will hide and show your WP errors.

WP_DEBUG_LOG:

It saves the error message in your WP_Content.

In wp-config.php you can set true or false by

define("WP_DEBUG", true);
define("WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY", true);
define("WP_DEBUG_LOG", true);

is_wp_error():

is_wp_error is the most popular debugging WordPress tool that finds find out if your wp error is certain or not. If your WordPress method got failed then it will work as a return object too.

Example of it:

$post = array(
    'post_title'    => 'Test post',
    'post_content'  => 'This is my post.',
    'post_status'   => 'publish',
    'post_author'   => 1
);
$result = wp_insert_post( $my_post );
if(is_wp_error($result)){
    echo $return->get_error_message();
}

If this post adding method got failed then wp_error will return to the object. You can also get your error message from there.

Simply Show Hooks:

This plugin will show all running hooks on your page. Furthermore, It will help you to analyze your hook code and debug it. You can also see attach method with every hook.

WPDB Error Reporting:

WPDB error reporting will be an important tool if you want to work with WPDB class. It will also detect if your queries run correctly or not. In addition to this, it will show an error message for php debugging WordPress.

Examples:

global $wpdb;
// Before running your query:
$wpdb->show_errors = TRUE;
$result = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT field_value FROM table_name");
if(! $result){
    $wpdb->print_error();
    // Or you can choose to show the last tried query.
    echo $wpdb->last_query;
}

Test Website And Configuration:

Sometimes you need to test your WordPress site. But You can’t do it in a way that your customer can see the test of your site. Moreover, it will cause a negative impact on your site.

So, it is important for WP users to divide the test environment from a live website.

PHP Errors:

PHP provides tricks to find out the errors on your site. Run phpinfo(); and after that check the error_log method.

If you configure your php.ini file then your error reporting will be turned on. You can also choose where to store messages.

error_reporting = E_ALL | E_STRICT 
error_log = /var/log/php_error.log

PHP Syntax checker:

If you face any limitation at the time of accessing the php.ini file then you can use debugging WordPress tools that can solve this problem of yours. Moreover, you can use PHP Code Checker that will check the syntax error of your site.

PHP IDE:

If you can’t solve your problem with PHP code checker then you need to use a more powerful tool. So, it is wise to use powerful IDE in the first place. Besides you can use the Eclipse tool. This will solve your advance debugging problem as well as break your code.

Disable your browser cache:

You need to disable your browser cache if you face these problems. For example, you need to update or have updated your JavaScript, but it is not showing any error.

In this case, you need to disable your browser cache.

Conclusion:

These mentioned 10 tips can be a life-changer for you in debugging WordPress. It can be hard work if you don’t know how to debug WordPress. Your all problem can be solved within few minutes if you use these tips.

Let us know in the comment section if you have other tips on your mind.

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