Debugging is essential for both client work and personal projects. This guide shares my approach to quickly identifying problems and finding solutions. These are the tools and steps I reach for every time.

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Essential Plugins for Debugging

Simple Admin Language Change

This plugin lets you switch the admin interface language with one click from the Admin Bar. Particularly useful when working on multilingual client sites, with no need to dig through language settings each time.

Query Monitor

An amazing plugin. Query Monitor gives you extensive debugging information at a glance:

• Displays PHP errors and warnings in red on the Admin Bar with location details
• Notifies about errors in Ajax requests with red marking
• Helps quickly detect and locate issues before they become production problems

WP Debugging Plugin

This handles situations where site features malfunction due to PHP version compatibility or other issues. It automatically enables debug mode if WP_DEBUG isn’t active and offers a “Debug Quick Look” menu on the Admin Bar for easy log viewing.

Health Check and Troubleshooting Plugin

When initial steps yield no results, this becomes invaluable. It lets you switch to the default WordPress theme and deactivate plugins with a single click, affecting only your admin session. This enables systematic testing by toggling themes and plugins individually to identify culprits without affecting frontend visitors.

Plugin Detective

A solid alternative to Health Check, offering similar functionality for troubleshooting theme and plugin conflicts.

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Common Debugging Steps

Check Browser Console

For frontend issues like non-functional sliders or failed “Load More” buttons, the browser console provides immediate visibility into JavaScript errors or warnings. Always start here for anything frontend-related.

Flush Permalinks

Custom post type pages occasionally show 404 errors despite correct code. Go to Settings > Permalinks and hit Save. No changes needed, just the flush. Plugins typically handle this automatically on activation, but it sometimes fails.

Clear Cache

After exhausting other options, clearing cache from your caching plugin frequently reveals that caching was the actual culprit. I’ve been burned by this more than once.

Update Plugins and Themes

Ensure everything is current. Developers continuously release updates addressing various issues, and the problem you’re debugging may already be fixed in a newer version.

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Advanced Debugging Techniques

xDebug Extension

For development work, xDebug gives you superior variable and function inspection directly inside your IDE. Eliminates the repetitive page reloads that come with var_dump and print_r.

Understanding PHP Error Types

PHP errors fall into three categories:

• Parse errors: Syntax problems preventing code execution entirely
• Fatal errors: Critical issues halting script execution mid-run
• Warnings: Non-critical issues that allow scripts to continue but signal something is wrong

Enable detailed debugging in wp-config.php to log all errors to wp-content/debug.log. The WP Debugging plugin gives you a UI for reviewing those logs, helpful for spotting whether issues originate from plugins, themes, or WordPress core.

Inspect Body Tag Classes and WooCommerce Product Classes

This one saves a lot of time on frontend debugging. The body tag contains:

• Page type (Post, Page, or Custom Post Type)
• Active theme
• Post/page ID
• Template type (Archive, Single, Author)
• Custom template file in use

WooCommerce product classes reveal product ID, stock status, category, type, and tax info, all useful when debugging storefront issues.

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Work with a WordPress developer who debugs this way

If you’re running into persistent WordPress or WooCommerce issues and need someone to trace them to the root, book a free discovery call. We’ll go through your site, identify what’s breaking and why, and map out a fix.

Or if you want to see the full range of what I can help with, see my WordPress and WooCommerce services.

Solutions aren’t always found on the first pass. But following these steps consistently should significantly cut down the time you spend finding them. This is my process. Every developer has their own. If you have techniques that work well for you, I’d love to hear them.