Hello, taro99, & welcome. First, could you please provide a site url? 2nd, you haven’t told us much, ie, is your hosting Linux or Windows? Shared, VPS, dedicated? Answers to those questions may help us better instruct you as to how to proceed.
Thread Starter
taro99
(@taro99)
Hi Jackie – sure. The site is hannahsalton.co.uk but the main site is behind a coming soon plugin. It’s on shared linux hosting, some other wordpress sites on the same hosting work fine.
In debugging yesterday I’ve tried the following:
- Restored a site backup to local MAMP server – no issues
- Create a second wp instance from a site backup to hannahsalton.co.uk/test, removed some key plugins which I thought may be culprits and changed the theme to twenty sixteen and I saw the same issues
Given the last test I wonder if the web hosting is the issue somehow? I’ve contacted them and they just responded saying that it could be MOD SEC interfering with your site causing the problem. They have turned it off to see whether this fixes the issue.
Thread Starter
taro99
(@taro99)
Update: MOD SEC didnt fix the issue. Any ideas or further ways I could troubleshoot?
Hi again Taro99. First, sorry for delayed response. I recently broke my wrist, & my ability to operate the computer is slowed considerably. Thanks for your answers. Let’s try the following.
Please go to your hosting provider’s control panel & see if it contains an aplet where you can view your site’s error logs. If so, please copy-&-paste recent entries.
Please also see if your hosting provider has an aplet in its control panel where you can change PHP versions &/or settings. If so, your PHP version should be at least 5.6, & memory should be set to a minimum of 64M.
If your provider has no such facility, then either via your hosting provider’s file manager or via FTP (& preferably secure FTP), open your wp-config.php file & change wp_debug from ‘false’ to ‘true’. Then log into your site & copy & paste any errors the site throws. This is a *serious security risk, so change it back immediately.
Lastly, if all this proves not to be helpful, I can offer you some space on my server, where we can try to replicate the problem. If we can’t, then it’s likely a hosting issue, & you can return to your host armed w/that info. If we can, then I’ll likely be able to see what’s occurring & offer advice accordingly.
Thread Starter
taro99
(@taro99)
Hi Jackie, thank you so much for the suggested steps.
I can’t be 100% sure yet as the issue was intermittent but I think it may be resolved!
I think the fix may have been changing the PHP version as you suggested, it was on 5.4 and i’ve moved to 7 and havent seen any issues since.
It’s definitely a server related issue at least as I saw the errors on a separate wordpress site on the same hosting package earlier. I did check the error log on cpanel but it was empty unfortunately. Thanks again for your help and very kind offer to allow me to host on your space to replicate – I hope the wrist heals soon 🙂
PHP 5.4 has been end-of-life for some time now. I just recently migrated a site to v. 7 & performance seems to have increased markedly. Please keep us updated, & please mark the topic ‘resolved’ when you feel it is. That way, the volunteers can go on to help others who need it.
Best of luck w/your site.
Thread Starter
taro99
(@taro99)
Thanks – still havent seen any further issues so I can conclude that the PHP version was the root cause.
