How to Check Plugin Conflicts in WordPress
Find out which WordPress plugin is causing problems on your travel website by testing them one at a time, without taking your site offline.
A WordPress plugin is a small add-on that gives your website extra features. Think of it like an app on your phone. WP Travel Engine is itself a plugin. So is your booking form, your payment gateway, and anything else that adds a feature to your site. You don't need to know any coding to use them.
Sometimes two plugins don't get along. They might both try to do the same job, or they might interfere with each other's code. When that happens, things break. Your booking form might stop loading. Your trip pages might show an error. Or your site might just feel slow and glitchy.
Say you install a new SEO plugin and suddenly your trip booking button stops working. That's a plugin conflict. The good news is they're usually straightforward to track down. You'll test your plugins one at a time until the problem reappears, and then you'll know which one is responsible.
What you'll need before you start
- Access to your WordPress admin dashboard (the back office of your website, usually at
yourwebsite.com/wp-admin) - About 15 to 20 minutes of uninterrupted time
Method 1: Use the Health Check Plugin (Recommended)
This method uses a free WordPress plugin called Health Check & Troubleshooting. It lets you test for conflicts without taking your site offline for visitors. While you're testing in the background, your customers can still browse and book trips as normal.
Here's why that matters: if you deactivate plugins the old-fashioned way (Method 2 below), your live site changes for everyone. With this method, only you see the changes.
Install the Health Check plugin
In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins on the left sidebar, then click Add New at the top of the page. Search for "Health Check" and you'll see a plugin called Health Check & Troubleshooting. Click Install Now, then Activate.
Open the Site Health page
On the left sidebar of your dashboard, go to Tools, then click Site Health. This is a built-in WordPress page that shows you how healthy your site is overall. You'll see a summary of any issues WordPress has detected.
Turn on Troubleshooting Mode
Click the Troubleshooting tab at the top of the Site Health page, then click Enable Troubleshooting Mode. This temporarily turns off all your plugins at once, but only for you. Your visitors still see everything as normal.
Turn plugins back on one at a time
Now go to Plugins on your dashboard. You'll see all your plugins listed, but they'll be turned off. Turn each one back on, one by one. After each one, check your website to see if the problem comes back.
Open a new incognito or private browser window and visit your trip pages or booking form. An incognito window shows you the site the way a visitor would see it, with no saved data getting in the way.
Find the plugin causing the trouble
When you turn on a plugin and the problem reappears, you've found the culprit. Turn that plugin off again so your site works properly, then exit Troubleshooting Mode.
To exit, go back to Tools, then Site Health, then the Troubleshooting tab, and click Disable Troubleshooting Mode. All your other plugins will turn back on automatically.
Report the conflict
Once you know which plugin is causing the issue, let that plugin's developer or support team know. They can often release a fix. In the meantime, keep that plugin turned off or replace it with an alternative that does the same job.
While you're in Troubleshooting Mode, your customers can still browse and book trips on your site. They won't notice anything different. Only you, as the logged-in admin, see the plugins turned off.
Don't want to install another plugin to do this? There's a second method that works entirely from your existing WordPress dashboard. It's more hands-on, but some people prefer it.
Method 2: Turn Plugins Off Manually
If you'd rather not add another plugin to your site, you can test for conflicts by hand. This method is more direct but has one big drawback: every time you deactivate a plugin, your live site changes for everyone. If a customer is mid-booking, they might see things disappear or break.
Before you start, create a full backup of your website. If anything goes wrong, you can restore everything in a few clicks. Your hosting provider usually offers backups, or you can use a WordPress backup plugin like UpdraftPlus. Alternatively, if you have a staging or test copy of your site, run this test there instead of your live site.
Open your plugins list
In your WordPress dashboard, click Plugins on the left sidebar. You'll see every plugin installed on your site, each with a link to deactivate it.
Deactivate plugins one at a time
Pick one plugin and click Deactivate under its name. Then check your website to see if the problem is gone. If it is, that plugin was the cause. If not, turn it back on and try the next one.
Check the specific area where you noticed the problem. For example, if your booking form stopped working, go look at a trip page and see if the booking button works again.
Report the conflicting plugin
Once you've found the plugin causing the conflict, let its developer or support team know. They can investigate and often release a fix. Keep the plugin turned off until the issue is resolved.
If you're still stuck or have a question we didn't cover, our support team is happy to help. Reach out at our support page and we'll get you sorted.