How to Test for Plugin and Theme Conflicts with Edwiser Bridge plugin and extensions

What are the theme and plugin conflicts?

Conflict is an error or malfunction caused by two parts of code giving conflicting signals. For example, Plugin A starts to malfunction due to Plugin B or vice versa. It could be alignment issues on a particular page, a feature not working properly, or may even break the page after a certain action.

Themes and plugins provide additional functionality and features — it also means more code is running on your website and the risk of incompatibility is higher.

How to understand which plugin/theme is causing the conflict?

1) First and foremost testing it on your backup or staging site is highly recommended. Deactivating and reactivating plugins typically doesn’t cause issues, but having a good backup will save you a lot of time and energy on the rare occasion it does.

Most hosting providers offer a backup plan. If not, there are two options:

Consider Jetpack Backup
Use a Staging site – This is a clone of your production site — one that is processing orders and has visitors — where you can safely test conflicts without your live site being affected and potentially losing revenue. Most hosting providers can help with this. Or, on most hosting platforms, you can also use the WP Staging plugin to create a clone in your Dashboard.

2) Deactivate theme to check for a theme conflict: Switch to a default WordPress theme, such as Twenty Nineteen to see if the issue persists.

If no, your theme is causing the issue. You can: a) change your theme; b) contact the author of the theme and ask them to fix it.
If yes, go to the next step.

3) Deactivate plugins to check for a plugin conflict: Temporarily deactivate all plugins except Edwiser Bridge, premium extensions of Edwiser Bridge(Edwiser Bundle), and WooCommerce.

Test if the conflict still exists. How to test it, depends on what type of conflict you were experiencing. For example, If the conflict occurred while browsing your site or the Dashboard, go to the same location. Examples of this would be:

A feature not working on the product edit screen
A button not showing on the cart page

4) Determine which plugin is causing the conflict by:

reactivating them one by one
testing again after each reactivation. For process-related conflicts, this means recreating the same process over and over again.

5) Drop-ins and must-use conflict check: On some sites is a “Must-Use” and/or “Drop-ins” section in the plugins list. These cannot be deactivated by you directly, but they can be the cause of the conflict.

Some of these plugins are installed by another plugin. The function as a “helper plugin”. While doing a conflict test, deactivating those other “parent” plugins will also deactivate these ones. Also, many hosting companies use drop-in and/or must-use plugins that they pre-install on your site because it helps with their server setup.

If the conflict persists in the latter case while doing the above tests, it might be caused by a drop-in installed by your host. For example, we’ve seen conflicts caused by drop-in caching plugins. In this case, you need to contact your hosting company for help with deactivation.

6) Helpful tools that will come to help:

Option 1) Health Check is useful for debugging and requires an official default WordPress theme such as Twenty Nineteen or our own Storefront. With a few clicks, it deactivates all plugins and changes the theme while you’re logged in to that session and normal visitors to your site are unaffected. More details at: Troubleshooting with Health Check.

Option 2) Meks Quick Plugin Disabler remembers what plugins you had active when you’re done testing.

If it still does not help you resolve the issue then do let us know and we will check and let you know more about it. Drop an email here: edwiser@wisdmlabs.com