Looking for the best free tools for quick and easy WordPress troubleshooting? Here are 25 site-saving tools our support team use every day to troubleshoot and fix issues on thousands of WordPress sites.
WPMU DEV’s support team handles an average of almost 10,000 support requests each month from members via live chat and forums, and over 75% of all the support tickets we receive involve troubleshooting WordPress sites.
Given the volume of support requests we receive and the urgent need to resolve issues for our members as quickly and effectively as possible, our support team has built up quite a list of useful WordPress troubleshooting tools…and most of them are free to use!
Bookmark this handy and helpful resource – it will help you become your clients’ all-time WordPress hero!
Keep reading to learn about all these useful tools or click on a link to go directly to the tool’s description and link.
MxToolbox offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage email configuration and troubleshoot email issues for improved email delivery.
The integrated tool provides diagnostics for MX records, DNS, blacklists, and SMTP. By inputting a domain name or IP address, you can access relevant tools and information, along with a chronological history of results.
The tool covers various checks, including reputation blacklists, SMTP server testing, MX records, SPF records, DNS A records, and more. Additionally, you can perform tasks such as domain registration lookup, IP address block information, TCP and HTTP connection verification, ping, trace route, and DNS server checks.
Check it out here: MxToolbox
httpstatus.io
httpstatus.io is a free tool for checking HTTP status codes, response headers, and redirect chains of a server in response to a URL request. It allows you to check bulk URLs and analyze and export the results.
The tool offers flexibility in modifying HTTP request settings, such as changing the User Agent, sending server authentication credentials, and adding custom headers, and helps troubleshoot issues like redirect chains, which can impact site performance, SEO, and user experience.
httpstatus.io also provides features like a redirect checker, customizable request headers, filters for sorting results, data export options, and identification of redirect latency issues.
The tool allows easy input of up to 100 URLs for checking status codes and redirect chains in one go, making it convenient for troubleshooting multiple WordPress sites.
Check it out here: httpstatus.io
Temp-Mail
Temp-Mail is a free throwaway email service that provides temporary and disposable email addresses.
Disposable email addresses are useful for troubleshooting sites, testing purposes, and protecting your business email from spam lists. They help keep your mailbox clean, protect against hacking attempts and spam, maintain anonymity, and are commonly used for registering on WordPress sites, forums, Wi-Fi networks, and online services.
Features of temp-mail.org include easy creation of temporary email addresses, no registration or personal information required, multiple email addresses available, temporary email storage for received messages, and the ability to generate random or choose specific email addresses.
Check it out this tool here: Temp-Mail
Tempail
Another temporary email address service we use to send notifications or test emails is Tempail.
Tempail’s temporary mail addresses expire after 1 hour and can be used to sign up to websites, social media, and read incoming emails.
Visit the website: Tempail
Postman
Postman provides a comprehensive set of tools for designing, testing, documenting, mocking, and discovering APIs.
The Postman API client is a foundational tool that lets you explore, debug, and test your APIs. It supports various API request types, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and WebSockets.
The API client automatically detects response language, links, and formats for easy inspection, provides built-in support for authentication protocols (e.g. OAuth 1.2/2.0, AWS Signature, and Hawk), lets you organize requests into reusable collections, include JavaScript code to connect requests or automate workflows, and use scripting capabilities to visualize API responses as charts and graphs for better analysis.
For more info, go here: Postman
MailTrap
MailTrap’s Email Testing tool makes a Sandbox SMTP server so you can use it to ‘send’ emails and they get ‘trapped’ by the SMTP server.
It creates individual testing environments for capturing and analyzing SMTP traffic, making it easy to test emails from staging and development environments.
Mailtrap also allows you to create individual inboxes, organize testing data, and manage email activity for different aspects of your WordPress site. The tool offers a Testing API for automating test flows and scenarios, and facilitates collaboration by enabling you to share test emails with your team, manage access to inboxes, and send selected test emails to whitelisted recipients.
You can view messages, check spam scores, validate headers, and analyze HTML support across different email clients for comprehensive email content and source analysis.
More info: MailTrap Email Sandbox
Mailhardener
We use Mailhardener to test email-related DNS records, but there are many reasons to consider using this tool.
For example, Mailhardener enhances email security, prevents fraud, and improves deliverability for WordPress sites.
It also:
- Maximizes email security standards to combat fraud, impersonation, interception, and censorship.
- Enables management of policies for email senders, actively monitoring email traffic and blocking fraudulent activity.
- Facilitates secure email transport through encryption and digital signatures.
- Includes email security features to improve deliverability by increasing trustworthiness in the eyes of spam filters.
- Provides visibility into email security results, helping identify areas for improvement and fine-tuning deliverability strategies.
Note: Mailhardener is a paid service, but it offers a free version for personal or evaluation use, allowing one domain with up to one month of data retention..
Learn more here: Mailhardener
ipinfo.io
ipinfo.io consolidates IP data in one place, offering valuable insights for troubleshooting WordPress sites.
Key features of this tool include include geolocation lookup, IP range analysis, privacy detection, company lookup, ASN details, hosted domains, mobile carrier detection, abuse contact information, and IP Whois records.
Benefits of using ipinfo.io for troubleshooting WordPress sites include:
- Streamlined analysis with a comprehensive suite of tools and APIs.
- Enhanced security by identifying potential threats and taking appropriate measures.
- Improved performance by optimizing network connectivity and addressing dependencies.
- Personalization and targeting based on geolocation and mobile carrier data.
- Reliable email deliverability through email security monitoring and improvements.
- Efficient troubleshooting with access to accurate and comprehensive IP data.
Check out the tool here: ipinfo.io
ifconfig
ifconfig is another tool you can use to check IP addresses and get information, such as geolocation, country, ISP, or organization.
It’s also a helpful tool for uncovering network bottlenecks or connectivity issues, combatting spam comments, malicious registrations, and abuse on sites, making informed decisions on blocking or whitelisting specific IP addresses, and gaining insights into website visitor sources.
SQL Queries to Change WordPress Website Domain
SQL Queries is a great time-saving tool is for moving WordPress websites from one domain to another. Just generate the queries and run them in MySQL.
DNSChecker
Understanding DNS propagation is crucial, as it takes time for DNS changes to propagate worldwide.
DNSChecker offers a free DNS propagation check service to verify if DNS records have propagated across multiple DNS servers worldwide.
The tool collects data from over 100 global DNS servers and presents results in an easy-to-understand format. Results are visually represented on a map, with green ticks indicating availability of DNS records and crosses symbolizing unavailability.
DNSChecker.org supports checking A, AAAA, CNAME, and additional DNS records for their propagation status. It also allows customization by adding custom DNS servers and performing checks based on IP, continent, and country. Detailed DNS record lookups enable troubleshooting of specific record-related issues.
To use the tool, go here: DNSChecker
WhatsMyDNS
WhatsMyDNS is another DNS propagation checker you can use.
The tool lets you instantly perform a DNS lookup to check a domain name’s current IP address and DNS record information against multiple nameservers located in different parts of the world.
SecurityTrails
SecurityTrails helps prevent infrastructure hijacking, identify hidden information on websites, and track domain history.
Our support team uses it to view a site’s historical DNS records. For example, let’s say that when moving a domain from one nameserver to another you forget to copy over a DNS record. If the record is not masked (this is generally done by cloudflare on purpose), then it should be visible on securitytrails.com
Key features include DNS record history, domain historical WHOIS data, domain names database, website technologies identification, passive DNS datasets, instant IP and domain search, hostname information exploration, and tagging for efficient searches.
The tool provides an API for fetching domain, DNS, and IP-related data, real-time intelligence, and a user-friendly interface.
A free account shows you the full DNS history for any domain.
Other benefits of using this tool include:
- Prevent hijacking of IT infrastructure through DNS manipulation.
- Identify hidden information on websites.
- Identify previous hosting companies using historical DNS information.
- Check domains past nameserver & MX record history.
- Find the real IP address of a website behind Cloudflare.
Note: some of the items listed above require a premium account.
For more details about this tool, go here: SecurityTrails
SSL Checker
SSL Checker is a free tool from SSL Shopper that helps verify the correct installation, validity, trustworthiness, and error-free status of SSL certificates on web servers. This ensures that users’ browsers won’t display untrusted warnings, maintaining a seamless browsing experience.
The tool performs comprehensive SSL certificate verification, checking the SSL connection and providing clear results on the certificate’s status.
The SSL Checker tool confirms the correct hostname inclusion in the certificate, checks for other potential issues, such as outdated hash functions, to ensure SSL security is up to date, and includes an expiration date reminder feature to facilitate timely renewal.
Check it out here: SSL Checker
Why No Padlock?
Why No Padlock? is an alternative to using the SSL Checker tool described above. It is a powerful tool that checks if SSL is valid, helps identify the source of insecure content elements on SSL pages in WordPress, and provides information about the issuing company of the SSL certificate.
The tool verifies SSL certificate validity, checks for proper installation of intermediate chain certificates to prevent false security indicators, and matches the URL with the certificate domain. It also generates a detailed report on insecure calls to images, CSS, and JavaScript, SSL certificate validation, secure resource loading, insecure calls with referrer information, and third-party SSL certificate validation.
WhyNoPadlock.com is compatible with various eCommerce platforms, including ShopSite, Magento, and WooCommerce.
More info: WhyNoPadlock.com
GiftOfSpeed
GiftOfSpeed provides tool to identify and help resolve speed-related issues.
Tools include compression tests, image optimization, caching evaluation, CSS and JavaScript compression, HTTP request checking, keep-alive testing, and more.
Benefits of using GiftOfSpeed.com’s tools for troubleshooting WordPress sites include:
- Improved page speed and user experience.
- Enhanced search engine rankings.
- Reduction in file sizes without compromising quality.
- Minimization of unnecessary elements and line breaks.
- Identification and removal of broken links and unoptimized images.
Learn more about this tool here: GiftOfSpeed.com
Domsignal
Domsignal offers an extensive range of free tools to help you test, troubleshoot, and enhance the performance, security, and SEO of WordPress sites.
Testing tools include Secure Headers Test, TLS Scanner, Referrer-Policy Test, Secure Cookie Test, HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) test, TTFB Test, HTTP Headers Checker, X-Frame-Options Test, MIME Sniffing Test, and many other powerful tools.
One tool we use in particular is Domsignal’s mixed content testing tool, which helps identify and locate mixed content issues in WordPress sites.
Mixed content refers to web pages that request elements over non-secure connections despite being served securely. Mixed content can compromise website security and trigger browser warnings, leading to decreased trust and potential loss of web traffic.
Resolving mixed content involves updating URLs to use secure protocols (HTTPS) and contacting resource providers for HTTPS availability or alternatives.
This tool streamlines the troubleshooting process, enabling the maintenance of a secure and trustworthy website for visitors.
For more information, go here: Check Mixed Content
GZIP Compression Checker
GZIP Compression Checker is a fast and easy-to-use tool that provides detailed results on whether gzip compression is enabled on your web server.
Gzip compression reduces page size, leading to faster loading and display. The tool is free, with no hidden costs. Enabling gzip compression is straightforward, with default settings in Apache’s mod-deflate module or configurable options in IIS. Remember to back up server settings before making any changes.
xBrowserSync
xBrowserSync offers a privacy-focused alternative to traditional browser syncing services provided by tech giants like Google, Firefox, and Opera.
It prioritizes data control and privacy, allowing users to regain control of their data and ensure anonymity, enhances productivity by adding descriptions, tags, and an intuitive search interface to native browser bookmarks, and offers backup and restore functionality to prevent data loss.
The tool includes a desktop browser web extension and a mobile app for Android users.
Check it out here: xBrowserSync
Broken Link Checker
Broken links can harm SEO, user experience, and site health.
Broken Link Checker is a fast and accurate tool for WordPress that helps monitor and detect broken links, and resolve them quickly.
The plugin scans deeply and frequently, covering external and internal links, images, and redirects. It is 20x faster than other plugins and provides detailed results.
Broken Link Checker offers two link checking engines: a cloud-based engine for speed, unlimited scanning, and management of multiple sites, and a local engine that uses site/server resources. The plugin allows manual or scheduled scans, editing or unlinking broken links, detailed reports, email notifications, advanced search filtering, and export options.
Learn more about Cloud Broken Link Checker.
Uptime
Understanding if your site is down helps in troubleshooting and identifying potential issues like DNS problems, internet backbone failures, or network congestion.
Uptime can be accessed from The Hub. Our team uses Uptime reports to see how long a site has been offline when errors are reported.
Uptrends
Uptrends provides a free website uptime tool that lets you check the availability of your website from over 40 worldwide locations. Each checkpoint sends a request to your site, tracks the response time, and generates a report.
The tool provides green or red tiles indicating site availability, along with test duration and detailed timing information. A red status across all checkpoints indicates significant problems like DDoS attacks, hosting provider outages, or hardware malfunctions.
New Relic (WPMU DEV Hosted Sites)
Our support team uses New Relic to quickly identify and address performance issues on WordPress sites hosted with WPMU DEV.
WPMU DEV hosting plans include free integration with New Relic and their free plan is sufficient for troubleshooting analysis.
Uploading Plugins To Hub Connected Sites
Being able to upload plugins to any site connected to The Hub, even via ZIP or public/Dropbox/GDrive link, is useful, since the zip method allows for multiple plugin zips to be uploaded.
This method is useful for testing plugins if you have the latest version of a premium plugin .zip file but for some reason you are unable to update the plugin from the WordPress admin.
Payment Testing
Sandboxes provide a testing environment that simulates the behavior of actual payment gateways without processing real transactions. Testing payment forms using Stripe and PayPal sandboxes ensures that integrations with payment gateways is functioning correctly.
We use Stripe and Paypal sandboxes to test payment forms (e.g. Forminator).
For more information about setting up sandbox accounts for Stripe and PayPal and instructions on integrating and testing payment forms with their sandboxes, go here: Stripe Sandbox | PayPal Sandbox
Gists
In addition to the above tools, we also use GitHub Gists to create custom snippets that help support team members save time running various scripts when troubleshooting WordPress sites.
Gists offer a convenient method for sharing code snippets with others. Each gist is a Git repository, allowing it to be easily forked and cloned. When you create a gist while logged in to GitHub, it becomes associated with your account and appears in your list of gists on your gist home page.
Gists can be either public or secret. Public gists are displayed in the Discover section, enabling people to explore recently created gists. They are also searchable, making them suitable if you want others to discover and view your work.
WordPress Site Troubleshooting – DIY Or Use WPMU DEV’s Support?
Hopefully, the list of tools we have provided here will help you diagnose and troubleshoot issues on your clients’ WordPress sites more quickly and effectively (remember to bookmark this article, so you have this list handy!)
These tools, however, are only a small part of what it takes to keep WordPress sites running error-free and without problems. Managing WordPress sites effectively requires continually and proactively staying on top of performance issues to ensure a smooth user experience.
If you are a WPMU DEV member, why not let our support team handle it all for you so you can focus on growing your business?
WPMU DEV’s all-in-one WordPress platform is designed to help WordPress developers better manage their client sites. This includes providing world-class and affordable hosting services with a built-in suite of professional plugins and tools to ensure optimal site performance, and 24/7 access to the expertise of an entire support team with the knowledge and skills to resolve problems on WordPress sites quickly and effectively.