Use a staging site to troubleshoot errors

A staging site is a useful tool for troubleshooting conflicts between plugins, errors with themes, and more without impacting your live website. This guide will show you how to use a staging site to troubleshoot common errors.

This feature is available on sites with the WordPress.com Business and Commerce plans. If you have a Business plan, make sure to activate it. For free sites and sites on the Personal and Premium plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

A staging site creates an exact replica of your live site, including any errors it has. On the staging site, you can deactivate plugins and change themes to identify where the error is without impacting your live site.

To create a staging site and identify the problem, follow these steps:

1. Visit your Sites list in the dashboard.
2. Select your live/production site from the list.
3. Next to your site title, click the “Add staging site” link (or, click the Production drop-down to add a staging site if using the new Hosting Dashboard.) This process will take some time to complete.

4. Once the staging site is created, click the Production drop-down next to your site title and select your staging site.

5. On the staging site, switch to a default WordPress theme, such as Twenty Twenty-Four or Twenty Twenty-Five, to see if the issue persists.
   • If the issue goes away, the theme caused the issue. You can: a) change your theme; b) contact the theme’s author and ask them to resolve the issue.
   • If the issue doesn’t go away, proceed to the next step.
6. Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and temporarily deactivate all plugins from your website (except for Akismet and Jetpack, which are automatically managed for you and unlikely to be the cause of the issue.)
7. Check if the error still appears. If the issue is no longer present, one of the plugins you deactivated was causing the conflict.
8. Determine which plugin is causing the conflict by reactivating your plugins one by one and checking for the error after each one is reactivated. Once the error returns, you’ll know that the plugin you just reactivated is the one causing the issue.

Once you’ve identified the problematic plugin or theme on your staging site, you can apply the fix to your live site.

To resolve the issue on your production site, follow these steps:

1. Click the Staging drop-down next to your site title and select your production site.
2. Deactivate the plugin or theme that you identified as the issue, or sync your changes from staging to production.
3. Leave the plugin deactivated and contact the plugin’s developer to resolve the issue.