You ran plugin updates (or WordPress updated a plugin automatically), and something on your site broke. It might be obvious (white screen, checkout stopped working, admin area inaccessible) or subtle (a specific feature stopped working, a layout changed, emails stopped sending). The update is the likely cause. The question is which plugin and what it broke.
Step 1: Run a Loupely diagnosis immediately #
Before deactivating anything, run a Loupely diagnosis on a page that shows the broken behavior. The capture will include the PHP error data that a plugin update commonly produces: a fatal error referencing a specific plugin file, a deprecation warning that became a fatal in a newer PHP version, or a conflict with another plugin triggered by a code change in the update.
The diagnosis will usually identify which plugin’s code is throwing the error. That gives you a precise target rather than the standard “deactivate everything one by one” approach.
Step 2: If Loupely identified the plugin, deactivate it #
Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins, find the plugin Loupely named, and deactivate it. Test whether the broken behavior resolves. If it does, you’ve confirmed the cause.
To fix it, you have 3 options:
- Wait for a patched version. Report the issue to the plugin developer (the capture file gives them everything they need to reproduce it) and re-enable the plugin when the fix is released.
- Roll back to the previous version. The free WP Rollback plugin lets you install an older version of any plugin from the WordPress.org directory. For premium plugins, check the developer’s account area for previous versions.
- Find an alternative plugin if the developer isn’t responsive or the plugin is abandoned.
Step 3: If you can’t access the admin area #
If the plugin update caused a white screen or locked you out of WordPress Admin, you can’t deactivate plugins through the dashboard. Your options:
- Via hosting file manager: Go to your hosting control panel, navigate to
wp-content/plugins/, and rename the folder of the problematic plugin. WordPress won’t load it if the folder name has changed. This effectively deactivates it without needing admin access. - Via FTP: Same approach using an FTP client to rename the plugin folder.
- Restore from backup: If you have a recent backup from before the update, restoring it is the fastest path back to a working site. You’ll lose any content added since the backup, so check what you had before restoring.
After recovery: share the capture file with the plugin developer #
If you ran a Loupely diagnosis before deactivating, the capture file contains the specific PHP error, the file and line number, and the context that caused the failure. Send that to the plugin developer. It converts “your update broke my site” into “here is the exact error, the file, and the context.” Most developers can reproduce and fix that in minutes rather than asking you for days of back-and-forth.