How to identify a wordpress plugin causing issues

Howto: Identify a wordpress plugin(s) causing issues, such as slow wordpress dashboard

Issues typically found:

• Slow wordpress dashboard
• slow page editor loading
• website loading slowly
• 503 errors

Plugins that are having issues typically it can be from a number of reasons:

• Not up to date
• Conflicting plugins
• Depreciated PHP functions
• Bugs
• Exploited ( contact forms, custom field plugins need to be updated regularly )
  
  

In order to diagnose the troublesome plugins, monitoring which plugins/scripts that are soaking up considerable resources is essential - Lets get started!

Step 1:

Download and install & activate Query Monitor plugin for wordpress from QueryMonitor.com

Step 2:

Click on query monitor at the top of your wordpress bar - This will bring down a monitoring panel in your browser.

Step 3:

Visit the typical pages/parts of your dashboard that are slow - Check which scripts are soaking up Time, Memory. Disable the ones soaking up time & memory - Then retry your dashboard experience.

Step 4:

Disabling plugins one at a time is also beneficial to finding the plugin causing the slowness. - Disable the plugins one by one in your wordpress panel. - Retry slow pages after disabling each plugin.

WP Memory Limit: If your site is hitting the WP memory limit, you may want to add this to your wp-config.php:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M');

You can go up to 1024MB however only for larger websites is this required.

Ensure your PHP.ini via cPanel PHP INI editor - Memory limit is above, or equal too the 512mb specified in your wp-config.php.