Find weird issues using WP_DEBUG

For a developer like me it is impossible to achieve full compatibility with all plugins and themes in the WordPress ecosystem. In spite of all the care taken, it is simply the case that some plugins or even the theme will output a strange error. On this page you can find out how to locate these errors using WP_DEBUG.


Let’s say you have an issue on WooCommerce category pages. It’s a weird behavior that occurs but you know it only happens when SNIP is activated. You can do the following to get to the error log:

  1. Follow the guide here on how to enable WP_DEBUG.
  2. Also make sure you activate WP_DEBUG_LOG.
  3. Once this is done, navigate to the page where the problem occurs (in our case this would be a WooCommerce category page).
  4. If you’re already on this page, reload it.
  5. Download the file that you can now find in the wp-content folder using FTP. The file is called debug.log.
  6. Send the file (or the content of the file) to your support staff.

If you don’t get a debug.log file, the issue maybe not related to SNIP but to another plugin or theme, too.