Enable WordPress Debugging
ADVANCED GUIDE – PROCEED WITH CAUTION
This guide is more technically advanced and may require an additional level of knowledge beyond everyday website operation. If you have difficulting following this guide, or want further assistance, please contact our team using the chat link at the bottom of your screen. When in doubt, chat before you click.
Sometimes you need to troubleshoot issues with your WordPress installation. To do this, WordPress offers a ‘debugging’ mode which will output the contents of your error log to the screen. To disable debugging, simply follow the steps below, and change Step #3 to ‘OFF’.
It is not recommend that this be enabled in PRODUCTION as your visitors may be able to see error messages and/or sensitive information. We recommend making a copy of your website first to staging and performing your troubleshooting activities there first.
Activate Debugging With WP Toolkit
- Log into cPanel
- On the left-hand menu, click WP Toolkit
- Find the WordPress site you want to enable Debugging for, and toggle Debugging to On
Activate Debugging via The ‘wp-config.php’ File
This guide is more advanced and if done incorrectly can cause issues with your WordPress installation. We recommend trying the method above first if you haven’t already.
- Log into cPanel
- Go to the File Manager
- Browse to the ‘public_html‘ directory, and find the appropriate ‘wp-config.php‘ file for your installation. If you’re modifying staging, you may want to look in the ‘staging’ directory, or whatever directory you set up during the staging process to house your WordPress installation. Right-click on the file, and click Edit
- Find the section of your config file that says:
/* Add any custom values between this line and the "stop editing" line. */
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */ - Enter in the lines:
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true );
@ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 ); - After making the changes to your file, click Save Changes
- If you want to reverse this process, simply follow all of the steps up to #5, and then remove the lines in step 5 from your config file, and save.