Last week I noticed that the newest WordPress update included an important security fix. Since I was a couple of updates behind and word on the virtual street was this was an important fix, I updated.
Next time I tried to post to my blog I found I couldn’t make a post-dated blog post and I couldn’t add tags at all. Hmmm. Frustrating.
Being busy, I left it as-is and went about my business. Then on Friday I decided to find out what the problem is. I put word out to my various social networks and the creators of my theme. Initially I got a lot of virtual head scratching, but finally I got an answer that worked.
Check my plugins.
More specifically, turn off all my plugins and see if the problem has been fixed. If it has been fixed, turn them back on one at a time until I find the offending plugin.
So I logged into the back end of my blog and turned off all the plugins. Sure enough, I could now write a post-dated blog and add tags. So it was the plugins.
Next, I looked through all my plugins. There were a lot. Over the past couple of years I’ve gone a little plugin crazy. So I looked at ones I wasn’t using and deleted them entirely. If plugins were the cause of the problem I might as well simplify things.
Once that was done I noticed a number of the plugins I do use had newer versions. So I updated them. The nice thing about WordPress is I can now update plugins automatically – no more downloading the new plugin, unzipping it, uploading it to my blog and reactivating. Just press and button and WordPress does it for me. Even I can manage this.
Now it was time to reactivate my plugins. Since I had already cleaned house and am a little impatient, I didn’t reactivate them one at a time; I did it in batches. I figured if I activated five at once and everything was fine, I’d saved some time. If not, at least I’d have the culprit narrowed down.
At the end of the day, I never did find out which was the offending plugin; one of the ones I deleted or one of ones needing an update. However, now things are working just fine and I didn’t have to make a call to a techie to fix it for me.
So, next time you’re having problems with your blog. Check the plugins. It might be a simple fix.
Andrea J. Stenberg
