WordPress is the best platform for blogging and podcasting. And with so many parts, something could break. Here is how to fix the most common problems you may face with WordPress.

The common WordPress troubleshooting steps

Review the “11 WordPress Troubleshooting Tips” (#226, /wptroubleshooting) I have previously shared:

1. Backup
2. Consider hiring help
3. Trace the problem logically and linearly
4. Test with “incognito” and other browsers
5. Revert changes
6. Deactivate WordPress plugins
7. Try a default WordPress theme
8. Optimize performance (and clear the caches)
9. Ask your web host
10. Tighten security
11. Hire help

The most commonly successful steps are to clear (or disable) caching or deactivate plugins.

Review the official “Common WordPress Errors” resources

Most of the common problems you'll face are already addressed by the WordPress team:

• The White Screen of Death—You visit your front-end or back-end and the screen is blank and white
• Internal Server Error—Also called “error 500”
• Error Establishing Database Connection
• Failed Auto-Upgrade
• Connection Timed Out—Stuff takes a really long time to load and may eventually give up
• Maintenance Mode Following Upgrade
• You Make Changes and Nothing Happens
• Pretty Permalinks 404 and Images not Working—Also called “page not found”
• Custom Post Type 404 Errors—Also called “page not found”
• Specific Error Messages

Numbers appended to URLs or a slug/URL is already taken

A “slug” is a section of a URL usually after the domain and usually between slashes. For example, TheAudacitytoPodcast.com/this-is-a-slug/. WordPress makes a slug for most content (pages, posts, products, pretty links, and custom post types) and taxonomy (tags, categories, and some other taxonomy for custom post types).

With few exceptions, these slugs must be unique. Thus, if you have two items with the same name, WordPress will usually append a number to the slug to prevent duplicates.

This is also why you may have trouble making a /podcast URL with PowerPress installed, but there's a workaround.

To avoid duplicate slugs, you may need to check your pages, posts, categories, tags, and other plugins to delete or rename anything already using the same slug (for example, I recommend you make your category slug “podcast-episodes” or “audio-podcast” instead of “podcast”).

Some URL-creating plugins, such as Pretty Link, may be more sensitive to pre-existing slugs. In fact, I discovered and reported a bug in a version of one such plugin where it would not allow a new slug to end with anything the same as another slug (for example, you can't make “/mypodcastfeed” because “/feed” was already used).

Stuff doesn't update

In addition to WordPress's own recommendation for clearing your browser cache (under “You Make Changes and Nothing Happens”), you may need to clear or disable your website cache, as well. Remember that there may be multiple layers to clear or disable, such as WordPress cache, server cache, and external/CDN cache (like CloudFlare).

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Disclosure

This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship and

may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.