{"id":39,"date":"2026-10-22T07:04:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/?p=39"},"modified":"2026-10-22T07:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:04:59","slug":"wordpress-update-broke-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/2026\/10\/22\/wordpress-update-broke-site\/","title":{"rendered":"A WordPress update broke my website. What should I do first?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo: Lukas Blazek \/ Pexels. Illustrative photograph. Photo source<\/a> \u00b7 Pexels licence<\/a><\/p>\n

If a WordPress update breaks the site, first identify what changed and protect the remaining evidence. Randomly installing fixes or changing several plugins can make the original problem harder to isolate. The immediate objective is a safe recovery and a clear explanation of the failure.<\/p>\n

Record the symptoms and recent change<\/h2>\n

Note the affected URL, the approximate time and whether the problem is a blank page, broken layout, login failure or a specific feature. Keep the error message and recent update details. Avoid displaying technical errors publicly because they can reveal internal information.<\/p>\n

Check whether the hosting dashboard or WordPress recovery mechanism provides a useful error report. If the site is taking orders or enquiries, decide how customers will reach you while the affected function is unavailable.<\/p>\n

Use a recoverable path<\/h2>\n

Confirm that you have a suitable backup before making further changes. A restoration may be appropriate, but understand what newer content, orders or submissions it could replace. On a busy site, restoring an old database without that check can lose legitimate activity.<\/p>\n

Where possible, reproduce the issue in a private staging copy. Test the suspected theme or plugin change there and involve its maintainer or your developer. A staging copy should not send real customer emails or process live payments during tests.<\/p>\n

Verify the recovery beyond the homepage<\/h2>\n

Check login, navigation, forms, important content and any transaction flow. Keep the exact change and result in a maintenance record. The next update should include a compatibility review and a rollback plan based on what failed.<\/p>\n

I can help investigate through WordPress support<\/a>. Describe the symptoms<\/a> without sending credentials, and explore my work<\/a> first. Read How do I know whether my website backup actually works?<\/a> before relying on a backup and How many WordPress plugins are too many?<\/a> when reviewing dependencies.<\/p>\n

A temporary recovery is only part of the work. Identify the cause and test the corrected path so the same update does not simply recreate the failure next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If a WordPress update breaks the site, first identify what changed and protect the remaining evidence. Randomly installing fixes or changing several plugins can make the original problem harder to isolate. The immediate objective is a safe recovery and a clear explanation of the failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wordpress-and-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelracle.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}