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[conflict detection] tool/plugin to determine plugin conflicts

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It would be great if wpmu dev could come up with either a plugin or cloud based tool to assist with helping find plugin conflicts on wordpress sites.

Mon, 5 Nov 2018 10:46:39
  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello cornelius_butler

    I hope you’re having a nice day!

    That’s a great idea and it would be a really useful tool but I’m afraid that due to a technical reasons it’s not quite possible.

    Detection of some possible issues could be automated but in most cases finding and resolving such conflicts does require “human intervention” as there are no specific patterns/rules/symptoms. The fundamental test is to disable all the plugins and switch site to a default theme, then keep enabling them back one by one, after each one checking if a specific issue is happening. But you need to know first what kind of issue you’re testing for. Then, some issues would be “assessed” in a different way when checked by a “cold code” and in a different way when evaluated by a site owner and/or by an experienced professional.

    That being said, plugins such as

    – our Defender that can detect some potentially malicious code on site

    – WordFence that can do similar thing and suggest which plugins might be outdated

    – PHP Compatibility Checker – which tests against PHP compatibility (but note please: it’s not fully reliable and its reports should also be verified by human as it often brings “false positives”:wink:

    they can all help a bit but won’t replace a full conflict test. If you’re running our own Automate for your site and have backup upon updates enabled, there’s an option that makes a “visual comparison” of the site before and after backup to possibly “catch up” that “something” might went wrong during update. That’s another “step towards automation” of such conflict tests. Still though, if issues are detected they might need to be addressed by human.

    Best regards,

    Adam