Plugin conflicts can cause various issues on your WordPress website, from functionality problems to complete site crashes. Identifying and resolving these conflicts is crucial for maintaining a smooth and efficient site.
In this article, we will guide you through the process of troubleshooting plugin conflicts.
A WordPress installation consists of a WordPress Core, an active theme, and usually one or more plugins. Plugins can often cause conflicts, resulting in many problems that can be hard to diagnose.
Check for conflicts using Divi's Safe Mode
Go to WordPress Dashboard → Divi → Support Center
Enable Divi's Safe Mode
Check your website again
Note: While Divi's Safe Mode is enabled, it will disable the following:
All the plugins
The child theme - if one is being used
Any custom CSS Code added to WordPress Dashboard → Divi Theme → Options General Tab → Custom CSS
Any Custom code added to WordPress Dashboard → Divi → Theme Options → Integrations Tab
Those are being disabled only for the user that activated the Safe Mode, while your website's visitors will not be affected by the above deactivations
Check for conflicts using the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin
Go to WordPress Dashboard → Plugins → Add New Plugins
Install and activate the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin
Go to WordPress Dashboard → Tools → Site Health
Click on the Troubleshooting tab
Click on the Enable Troubleshooting Mode button
At this point, all the active plugins will be automatically deactivated. Check if the issue is still happening.
If the issue is not happening when Troubleshooting mode is active
Go to WordPress Dashboard WordPress → Plugins
For each previously active plugin, click on the Enable while Troubleshooting link
Check if the issue is happening
Repeat these steps for all previously active plugins
Once the faulty plugin is identified, deactivate it and remove it from your website
Search for a similar plugin on WordPress Plugins Repo
Usually, when a plugin is conflicting with a theme/WordPress, you can inspect a page (backend or frontend) and check the Console for errors (mostly JavaScript) by right-clicking on that page and selecting Inspect from the Contextual Menu
A plugin conflict may look like this:
How to avoid plugin conflicts:
Never install a plugin on a live website—even if you used the plugin in the past without problems. Instead, install it first on a staging website. You can check The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up Your WordPress Development Environment article for more information regarding how to set up a Staging server
Take time to test the plugin before upgrading it. After you set up the staging environment, upgrade the plugin there. Test your website, and if everything works fine, upgrade the plugin on the live website as well.
Ensure that plugins that will be installed or are already installed are still maintained by their respective developers.
Ensure that each plugin has been tested with the current version of WordPress on your website.
What to do when a plugin conflict is found?
Go to WordPress Dashboard → Plugins
Click on the View Details link of the plugin in question (which creates the conflict)
Click on the WordPress.org Plugin Page » link
Click on the Support link
This process will route you to the plugin's support page, where you can request further support from its developer.