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I'm having problems with what I think are conflicting plugins. I've done my research and I'm a bit stuck.

This conflict only seems to happen a little while after a core or a plugin update. Not immediately, but often around 12 hours later.

What happens is the backend stops responding, whilst the front end appears to work, thanks to the cache. If I disable and then re-enable the plugins (via the db) the site responds again and remains stable until the next update.

So, do you have any ideas how I can diagnose what's causing this? Or are there any known conflicts in this list?

The site has these plugins and uses a modified Thematic theme

  • Akismet
  • BackWPup
  • Custom Post Widget
  • Display widgets
  • Google Analytics Dashboard
  • Google Analytics graph integration.
  • Gravity Forms
  • Maintenance Mode
  • NextGEN Gallery
  • PHP Snippets
  • qTranslate
  • TinyMCE Advanced
  • WordPress Ken Burns Slideshow
  • WP Remote
  • WP Super Cache

Thanks in advance

Pete

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Does your file-server have an error log in the WP Directory? I would start by turning on the DeBug and error reporting via the wp-config file. Open your wp-config and add this from the WordPress Codex Debugging page if it's not already there:

    // Enable WP_DEBUG mode
    define('WP_DEBUG', true);

    // Enable Debug logging to the /wp-content/debug.log file
    define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);

    // Disable display of errors and warnings 
    define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
    @ini_set('display_errors',0);

    // Use dev versions of core JS and CSS file
    define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);

It should generate an error log and a debug log that may help locate the issue. It sounds like it takes a while for the issue to show up so disabling plugins one at a time might be a long solution. I'd start with the Maintenance Mode, and the BackWPup plugins and go from there.

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  • That's great. I didn't realise you could log the errors without echoing them to the user. There's no error log in my WP directory, so I'll turn in on in wp-config like you suggest and give it a try, thanks.
    – Pete
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 13:03
  • Jeremy - would you say this is okay to run on a production site? Is it likely to cause a big performance drop?
    – Pete
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 17:30
  • It shouldn't create a "big" performance drop, but it will cause more work on your server. If you have plenty of bandwith and processor speed you won't notice a difference. If you are already borderline on either, it could cause a noticeable change in performance. I'd be sure to monitor it closely at first.
    – Jeremy Jared
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 18:00
  • Also, if you're using the DeBug feature you might consider using: if ( isset($_GET['debug']) && $_GET['debug'] == '1' ) { define('WP_DEBUG', true); } elseif ( isset($_GET['debug']) && $_GET['debug'] == '2' ) { define('WP_DEBUG', true); define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true); } elseif ( isset($_GET['debug']) && $_GET['debug'] == '3' ) { define('WP_DEBUG', true); define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true); } instead of define('WP_DEBUG', true);. You can then see the errors by adding ?debug=1, or ?debug=2, or ?debug=3 to the end of the current pages URL.
    – Jeremy Jared
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 18:05

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