My WordPress Website Died

Yes, even The Web Mechanic can experience problems with WordPress!

Recently I thought my website (this website) was running a little slow… but it wasn’t anything that I was concerning myself about very much. Then yesterday, it slowed to a stop! I would try to access a page and my browser would just sit there trying to load the page. I didn’t think it was me, so I contacted my webhost service folks. They could see that there were a bunch of processes running that were gumming up the works. We both thought it was something spurious but also something to keep an eye on.

The next day I received a couple of “Tweets” telling me I was experiencing problems with WordPress–that my site was acting odd… The front page was fine, but everything else threw up an error page. Not good!

Well, being the Chief Wrench at the The Web Mechanic, it was time to get under the hood! To make a long story short, I discovered that a WordPress plug in was causing the error. The plugin, called “Tweet This” had, I thought, been running fine, but it had been throwing errors for some time I found out. It just hadn’t gotten to the point of taking my site down …until today. I deactivated “Tweet This” and presto! The Web Mechanic is back up and running!

I have used “Tweet This” in a number of my client’s websites without a problem. (I have now gone back to check.) It may be a conflict with a plugin that is on my site and not theirs. Hopefully, the “Tweet This” plugin author will soon be able to correct the problem!

My problem with a plugin highlights a strength and a weakness of WordPress and what you should consider when you experience problems with WordPress.

Because WordPress is both “open source” and modular in nature, plugins can and are made by many, many people. They don’t always get the rigorous testing that a commercial product might. If you add a new plugin to your WordPress, keep track of when you added it and note it anything seems “different” about your site. That information could prevent hours of troubleshooting down the line, should a problem with WordPress arise. The WordPress strength? Because it is robust and modular, once I removed the problem “Tweet This” plugin…

The Web Mechanic was back and working fine…immediately!