Services / Forensic Troubleshooting

I find what others cannot.

Intermittent errors, white screens, broken checkouts, inexplicable slowdowns: these are the problems that defeat generalist developers. The same diagnostic methodology that resolves a straightforward plugin conflict applies to a failure that only manifests under specific user conditions on production servers — the kind of bug that gets attributed to "something weird with your hosting" when the real answer is simply that nobody has looked carefully enough.

Always

Diagnosis before any work begins

Every project

Fixed price after diagnosis

Root cause

Resolved, not just patched

The challenge

Why these bugs defeat general developers

Most WordPress developers troubleshoot by elimination: disable plugins one by one until the problem disappears. This method fails completely against intermittent errors, which are not consistently reproducible and may not manifest when a plugin is disabled in isolation. It also fails when the conflict involves interaction between multiple components: three plugins that each work perfectly alone but conflict in a specific combination.

Effective WordPress troubleshooting requires reading error logs, profiling query execution, isolating environments correctly, and understanding the hook and filter architecture well enough to trace where in the request lifecycle something is going wrong. It requires SSH access and comfort with WP-CLI, direct database queries, and raw server log analysis.

I have resolved crashes, conflicts, and failures that client developers, hosting support teams, and plugin authors had all been unable to identify. The approach is always the same: establish what is actually happening before proposing what to do about it.

What is included

Forensic troubleshooting services

All troubleshooting engagements begin with a diagnostic session. I do not propose a fix until I know exactly what is causing the problem. The diagnostic produces a root cause finding and a fixed-price remediation proposal.

The forensic diagnosis

Before I propose a fix, I know exactly what is wrong. I use Query Monitor, PHP error logs, staging environment isolation, and binary elimination to identify the precise root cause of any WordPress failure. The diagnostic is thorough and methodical, not a series of guesses applied to your live site. You receive a written finding describing the cause, the conditions under which it occurs, and the options for resolving it.

Plugin conflict resolution

I isolate and identify conflicting plugins with a systematic methodology that does not require disabling your live site or losing data. Plugin conflicts can involve two plugins, three plugins, or a plugin interacting with a theme or with a specific server configuration. I trace the conflict to the exact function call, hook, or filter where the collision occurs, not just to the plugin involved.

WooCommerce fault finding

Checkout failures, order processing errors, payment gateway conflicts, inventory glitches, and email notification failures diagnosed and resolved without compromising live transaction data. WooCommerce troubleshooting requires understanding how WooCommerce hooks interact with the payment gateway layer, the order management system, and any customisations in your specific installation.

Theme and page builder debugging

GeneratePress, Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, Bricks: I understand the hook architecture and rendering pipeline of each and can trace theme-level conflicts without destructive changes. Page builder conflicts frequently manifest as rendering problems that appear inconsistently across devices or browsers. I diagnose these at the output level, not just by switching themes.

Crash recovery

If your site is down, I work with maximum urgency. I can access and repair WordPress installations via SSH, WP-CLI, or direct database access, even when the admin panel is inaccessible or the site is returning a 500 error. White screens, fatal PHP errors, corrupted databases, and botched updates are all recoverable. The recovery process begins with establishing what actually changed before the crash.

Performance regression investigation

Sites that were previously fast and have become slow without an obvious cause require a different diagnostic approach to new performance work. I identify what changed: whether a plugin update, a WordPress core update, accumulated database overhead, or a hosting configuration change, and trace the regression to its origin before proposing remediation.

Who this is for

Right for you if…

A developer or agency has been unable to identify the root cause of a problem you have been reporting for weeks.

Your WooCommerce checkout is failing intermittently and you are losing orders you cannot identify without checking your payment gateway logs.

Your site went down after an update and your developer's attempted rollback has made things worse.

Hosting support is blaming your plugins and your developer is blaming the hosting, and nothing is getting fixed.

You have a problem that only appears in production and cannot be reproduced on staging.

You need expert help urgently, from someone who will provide a diagnosis and a fixed price before beginning work.

From the field

Results from actual engagements

Read the full case studies

47 minutes

Emergency recovery time

A membership organisation's site went down on a Friday evening with conference registration open. Previous developer unreachable. Site restored from first contact in 47 minutes. Root cause identified — a plugin auto-update with a PHP compatibility regression. Permanent fix deployed before Monday.

30s → <1s

WooCommerce page load time

Three distinct faults diagnosed — an unindexed meta query, an N+1 query loop, and a 2.3GB bloated session table. 847 database queries reduced to 23. No hosting upgrade required. The hosting company had recommended an expensive server upgrade. The problem was never the server.

FAQs

Common questions

My developer could not fix this. Why would you succeed?

The most common reason general WordPress developers fail to diagnose complex problems is that they rely on elimination rather than instrumentation. Without reading error logs, profiling database queries, and tracing execution through the WordPress hook system, you are guessing. I use tools and methodologies specifically suited to WordPress diagnostic work, and I approach every engagement as a root cause problem, not a symptoms problem.

Do you need to take my live site down to diagnose the problem?

No. Diagnostic work is conducted on a staging environment that mirrors your production site as closely as possible. For problems that only manifest under specific production conditions, such as a particular caching state, a specific user role, or a payment gateway webhook, I can diagnose in production using methods that do not disrupt normal site operation.

What if you cannot identify the cause?

I will tell you that, along with what I have ruled out, what I know about the conditions under which the problem occurs, and what further investigation would be required. I do not charge for remediating a problem I have not yet diagnosed. If a diagnostic engagement does not produce a finding, I discuss the options with you before going further.

How do you handle WooCommerce troubleshooting without risking live orders?

WooCommerce diagnostic work is conducted in a staging environment wherever possible. For problems that require investigation in production, such as a payment gateway that cannot be replicated in staging, I work with read-only access and monitoring tools that do not affect the transaction flow. I have experience troubleshooting WooCommerce without placing test orders or interfering with live payment processing.

How is a diagnostic engagement priced?

Diagnostic work is charged at my standard day rate, with a fixed scope agreed in advance. Once I have identified the root cause, I provide a separate fixed-price proposal for the remediation work. You decide whether to proceed. There is no obligation to use me for the fix once the diagnosis is complete.

From the blog

Diagnostic insight from the field

All articles →

Got a problem nobody else has been able to fix?

Tell me what you are dealing with. I will give you an honest assessment of whether I can help and what it will cost to find out.

Discuss your project View case studies