The Journal / the RoundBorders blog
What breaks in WordPress, how I fix it, and the occasional story from a project that taught me something. Written by one person, tested on real client sites, dated so you know what's current. If you're here because something's broken, the fix is usually in the first few steps.
Your site is showing WordPress's white box with the grey text, and there's an email in your inbox you may not have opened yet. Seven steps, from easiest to last resort, in the order I do them. Most sites are back before step four.
Bishoy Awad · founder, WordPress since 2012 Fixes
The white box, the white screen, and the errors that show up after an update. Easiest step first; most sites are back before step four.
Speed
Numbers before opinions. Each post starts with the one measurement that tells you which of the usual causes you actually have.
Security
The signs that are not obvious, the first ten minutes, and the one thing not to do (restore a backup and hope).
WooCommerce
Store-specific failures, written by a WooCommerce Pro Partner. Every one starts with what the customer sees and works back.
Moving
Hosts, domains, platforms. The parts that break rankings are the parts people skip; these posts do not.
From the bench
Projects that taught me something, numbers from real sites, and the occasional opinion about how this work should be sold.
Your site is showing WordPress's white box with the grey text, and there's an email in your inbox you may not have opened yet. Seven steps, from easiest to last resort, in the order I do them. Most sites are back before step four.
Eleven signs, from the obvious redirect to the quiet ones that only Google notices, then the short list of things to do before you touch anything, so the evidence survives and the cleanup actually sticks.
A blank page, no error, no email, nothing to search for. The white screen is the critical-error screen with the lights off. Here's where the error is hiding, and the six places to look for it.
Time to first byte is the one number that tells you whether your server or your page is the slow part. How to measure it properly, what a good number looks like, and the five things that actually move it, in the order that pays off fastest.
The site loads fast for visitors but the dashboard takes eight seconds and saving a post feels like dial-up. That gap has a short list of causes, none of which a caching plugin can reach. Here they are, with the check for each.
The order of operations that keeps every URL, the DNS trick that means zero downtime, and the checks to run before you cancel the old host. Rankings don't drop because you moved; they drop because of what got skipped.
The place-order button spins forever, or says nothing, or the customer gets 'no shipping methods available'. Every one of these has a one-minute test that confirms it. Here they are, in the order I run them, from a WooCommerce Pro Partner who fixes this most weeks.
Hourly billing charges the client for the developer's learning curve and rewards the slow. What changed when every project got one fixed number, what it cost me, and why I'd never go back.
House rules / how this blog is written
Usually a client's, with permission, during an actual repair. When a step stops working in a new WordPress version, the post gets a new "updated" date, not a quiet edit.
Steps run from easiest to last resort with a checkpoint after each. When the next step could make things worse, the post says so, and says what I'd charge to take it from there.
Nothing here is paid for by a hosting company or a plugin vendor. If a plugin is recommended, it's because it fixed the problem on the bench.