How to Recover WordPress After Plugin Update Issues: A Step-by-Step Guide

Updating WordPress plugins is an essential part of maintaining your website, but sometimes these updates can cause unexpected problems. Whether it’s a broken site, errors, or incompatibilities, such issues can be frustrating. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to recover your WordPress site after plugin update issues and restore normal functionality.

Step 1: Identify the Problem

Before jumping to a solution, identify the root cause of the issue. Common symptoms of plugin-related problems include:

• White Screen of Death (WSOD)
• 500 Internal Server Error
• Functionality breaking (e.g., missing elements or forms not working)
• Inability to access the admin dashboard

To confirm the issue is plugin-related, check your site’s error log or review recent actions (e.g., plugins updated before the issue began). also we have a full article about “How to Update WordPress, Plugins, and Themes Safely Without Issues“, you can read it for future prevention.

Step 2: Access Your Website Files

If the admin dashboard is inaccessible, you’ll need to access your site’s files using:

• File Manager in cPanel
• FTP Client (e.g., FileZilla)

Navigate to the wp-content/plugins folder where all your plugins are stored.

Step 3: Deactivate Plugins

To temporarily resolve the issue, deactivate all plugins:

1. Rename the plugins folder to something like plugins_old.
2. Check if the site is accessible. If it works, the issue lies in one or more plugins.

If the admin area is accessible:

• Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and deactivate them from there.

Step 4: Restore One Plugin at a Time

Once your site is back, restore and test plugins one by one to identify the problematic one:

1. Rename the plugins_old folder back to plugins.
2. Reactivate each plugin individually.
3. Reload your site after activating each plugin to check for issues.

When you find the plugin causing problems, deactivate it and move to the next step.

Step 5: Roll Back the Problematic Plugin

If a plugin update caused the issue, rolling back to the previous version can help:

1. Download The Wp Rollback Plugin.
2. install it and then find  the older version of the plugin and activate it

Consider using the WP Rollback plugin to simplify the rollback process in the future.

Step 6: Update or Replace the Plugin

To prevent further problems:

• Check for plugin updates if available.
• Contact the plugin developer for support.
• If the plugin is no longer maintained, replace it with an alternative.

Step 7: If Problem Still Exists

if problem still exists maybe it’s not related to your plugins update, read this article about “How to Fix 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress” and fix your website problem.

Step 7: Perform Regular Backups

To avoid such situations in the future, always back up your site before updating plugins. Use tools like UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy or Your webhosting backups on a regular basis for easy backups.

Conclusion

Recovering WordPress after a plugin update issue can be challenging, but with these steps, you can restore your site quickly. Always test updates on a staging site first, perform regular backups, and keep your plugins up to date to minimize risks. Also Creating a backup before updates is a must. Always back up your website before performing any updates.