My WordPress site is broken
White screen, plugin conflicts, PHP errors or a theme that crashes the admin panel. Here is how to get the site back up, then keep it up.
01 / What probably happened
Something updated that should not have
Nine times out of ten, a broken WordPress site is a broken plugin. An auto-update pushed a new version, that version was not quite compatible with another plugin, your PHP version or your theme, and the site fell over. The other ten per cent are theme updates, hosting changes or a hack. Most are recoverable within a couple of hours.
The classic pattern: 'it was working yesterday, nobody touched anything, now it is a blank page'. What actually happened is that your host or WordPress auto-updated something overnight, and there is no alarm because nobody was watching. Staging environments and manual updates exist precisely to stop this.
Good news is that your content is almost certainly fine. The database (where your content lives) is separate from the code, and recovering from a broken plugin or a broken theme rarely loses anything you wrote. Even if we end up rebuilding the site on a simpler platform, the content travels with you.
02 / How to actually fix it
Six things to try, in order
Start at the top. Most broken sites get fixed in the first two or three.
Figure out what broke in the last 24 hours
White screen of death (a blank page with no error) usually follows a plugin or theme update. The single most useful clue is: what changed most recently? Hosting panel activity logs, the WordPress updates screen and your emails from the host all point at the culprit.
Get into recovery mode
WordPress has a built-in recovery mode that lets you log into the admin panel even when the front end is broken. Check your admin email inbox for a recovery link after a fatal error. From there you can disable the plugin that caused it and get the site back up.
Roll back to a backup
If the host takes daily backups (most do on a decent plan), restoring yesterday's copy is often faster than debugging. We take a snapshot of the current broken state first, then restore. If the update needs to happen, we try it in a staging copy next time.
Untangle plugin conflicts methodically
Turn everything off. Turn things on one at a time. The one that brings the site back down is the culprit. Tedious, but reliable. Most plugin conflicts come from two plugins trying to do the same thing (two caching plugins, two security plugins, two SEO plugins).
Check PHP version compatibility
PHP is the programming language WordPress runs on. Hosts regularly upgrade the version, and older plugins or themes break when they do. If your site died suddenly after your host emailed about 'a PHP upgrade', that is very likely the cause. Sometimes the fix is rolling PHP back temporarily while you update the incompatible plugin.
Know when to cut your losses
If the site is running WordPress 5.x, uses a discontinued theme, relies on six plugins that have not been updated in two years, and falls over every time anything changes, you are not really running a website. You are running a ticking clock. A clean rebuild on something simpler is often cheaper in the long run.
03 / How we handle it
Triage, stabilise, decide, keep stable
Triage
Tell us what you are seeing (white screen, a specific error, a broken admin panel, a plugin dashboard crash). We work out whether it is a quick fix, a bigger cleanup or a rebuild situation.
Stabilise
First job is to get the site back online even if it is on yesterday's backup. Customers see a working site, you get some breathing space, and we can do the real diagnosis without pressure.
Decide: fix or rebuild
Sometimes the fix is an hour of work. Sometimes the site is held together with string and the honest answer is that a clean rebuild is cheaper than another year of emergency fixes. We give you the straight answer, no upsell.
Keep it stable
From here we look after hosting, updates, backups and monitoring on a flat monthly plan. Updates happen on a staging copy first so a single bad plugin can never take the live site down again.
FAQ
Common questions
My WordPress site is showing a white screen. What do I do first?
Check your email inbox for a WordPress recovery mode message. The system sends one automatically when a fatal error happens, and it contains a link that lets you into the admin panel to disable the problem plugin. If there is no email, your hosting control panel usually has a 'disable all plugins' option that achieves the same thing.
Can you fix the site without losing my content?
Almost always yes. Your content lives in the database, which is separate from the code that runs the site. Even if we end up rebuilding the whole thing, the content (posts, pages, images, product listings) can be exported and imported cleanly. Nothing you wrote is lost.
Why does my WordPress site keep breaking?
The honest answer is usually: too many plugins, an old theme from ThemeForest that was never really maintained, and a host that runs automatic updates without testing them. WordPress sites that break monthly are nearly always built on one of those three patterns. Fixing the root cause means reducing complexity, not adding more plugins.
Should I switch away from WordPress?
Depends on how you use it. If you mostly need a brochure site with a contact form and occasional page edits, WordPress is massively over-engineered and you will keep having these problems. A simpler platform gives you fewer moving parts and far less breakage. If you are running an active blog or need specific plugin features, WordPress might still make sense, but on proper managed hosting.
How quickly can you get me back online?
Same-day in most cases. If we can restore from a recent backup, the site is back within a couple of hours. A full rebuild (when that is the right call) is usually one to two weeks, and we put up a holding page or patched version immediately so you are never offline during the rebuild.
What is included in looking after a WordPress site?
Managed hosting, daily backups with retention, staging environment for updates, plugin and core updates tested before going live, security monitoring, SSL, and changes on request through your portal. All on a flat monthly plan starting at £39/mo on Starter, £79/mo on Standard.
Want a site that stops breaking?
Either we fix the WordPress site and look after it properly, or we rebuild it on something simpler. Either way you stop getting calls from customers saying the site is down.