WordPress plugins are the source for many capabilities that WordPress does not normally support. These add-on programs can unfortunately also cause problems with the typical WordPress installation. They may cause an issue that will stop the WordPress Administrator from loading so that you are unable to disable them through the normal interface. The following article discusses how to troubleshoot WordPress plugins without access to the WordPress Administrator.
Resolving WordPress plug-in Issues without Access to the WordPress Admin
Rename the entire plugins folder to something like “plugins-old” and then create a new folder named “plug-ins”. This folder is in the wp-contents folder of your WordPress installation. You will need to use the File Manager in cPanelor a FTP client in order to rename the folders. This disables ALL of the plugins.-
Re-load your WordPress page. If your page loads, then the problem is most likely a loaded plugin.
- Rename your new plugins folder to something like “plugins-blank”, then go back and rename your old plugins folder BACK to “plugins”
- Next, rename ALL of your plugins folders except one. And then re-load the page. You could also rename each plugin folder one-by-one and see if it helps to your page reloads.
- If the page gives you an error, then the problem is that plugin (If you rename them one-by-one, then you would looking to see if your WordPress page loads. If it loads, then the problem was the plugin folder that you renamed). If the page does NOT give you the error, then move to the NEXT plugin and enable it and then re-load the page. Continue this until you find the plugin that’s causing the problem.
Once you find the problem plugin, you can elect to re-load it, update it, or delete it. WordPress plug-ins are written by third-party developers and we cannot provide direct support for them. Not to mention that there are thousands of them, so it would near impossible for our staff to provide the coding support that you would need for some problems. Therefore, we do recommend you contact the author of that plugin. They will be able to provide the information that you need. The main result of troubleshooting the plugins in this manner is to regain access to your WordPress Administrator so that you can either take action through the WordPress administrator dashboard.