How to Enable Debugging in WordPress

Do you need to enable debugging in WordPress? This doesn’t apply to only All in One SEO but when trying to debug anything on your site from any plugin or your WordPress theme.

When troubleshooting issues with All in One SEO, there are times when you may need to find any possible errors being output by WordPress, plugins or themes.

When enabled, WordPress debug will log any errors detected on your site. This can be key to finding the source of an issue or just learning more details about any possible errors on your site.

Enabling debug in WordPress

To enable debugging on your site, please follow the steps below.

Locating the wp-config.php file

By default, WordPress debug will be disabled. To enable it, you’ll need to access your site files through FTP.

Alternatively, you can also just install a simple plugin to easily gain access to your WordPress files.

Editing the wp-config.php file

Once your site files are open, you’ll need to open wp-config.php for editing. This will be located in the root folder of your site.

The wp-config file contains site-specific configuration settings, such as database information and, potentially, settings added by your hosting provider. For debugging, you’ll need to find this line of code (will generally be near bottom of file):

define('WP_DEBUG',false);

Adding the debug code

Once you’ve located this, you’ll need to replace it with the following lines of code:

// 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 files (only needed if you are modifying these core files) define( 'SCRIPT_DEBUG', true );

This code will need be to inserted before the comment /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ in the wp-config,php file.

This will enable debugging and, importantly, prevent any errors from displaying on your site. Instead, a debug log will be saved to your site files.

Replicate the issue

After saving these changes to wp-config.php, you’ll need to return to your site and replicate the issue you’re seeing. This will ensure that it gets recorded in the error log.

Viewing the debug log

Then, you can return to your site files and open /wp-content/debug.log.

The contents of an error log can vary a lot depending on the cause and number of issues, but now you should be able to see details that help you better track down the issue.