I wrote about debugging functions for WordPress a while ago, and they are still an important part of my development workflow. But they're too simple and not enough. There are a lot of things that need to debug when fixing on a bug, or checking a compatibility issue, especially on a customer's website where these functions are not available.
Fortunately, there are several plugins (great plugins) that can help us know more about what's happening. In this article, I collect some useful plugins, that in my opinion, are must-have for a WordPress developer.
Query Monitor
It's no doubt that Query Monitor is the most popular & powerful debugging plugin, and is too familiar for all developers. These are the things I like about it, and use most:
- See how many queries a page have. It's helpful to see how many queries are reduced when using a cache plugin, especially an object cache plugin.
- See which/how many queries are made by a plugin, especially duplicated queries. It's easy to see whether plugins have good performance or not.
- Gather PHP and Ajax errors in one place. When you enable the debug mode on WordPress, usually WordPress will throw the errors on the screen. With Query Monitor enabled, the errors are gathered into a panel for you to see, and your screen is cleaned.
- References for current admin screen info like ID, page hook, etc.
Debug Log Manager
I just discovered Debug Log Manager recently, and really like it. The plugin helps to enable the debug mode without editing the wp-config.php file, and gives you a screen to see all errors in the admin area.
This is very useful when debugging customer websites, where we don't have access to their hosting to enable the debug mode via the WP_DEBUG constant.
The plugin gives us full info about the error, which file & line it is, and the steps of producing it.
Temporary Login
When a customer has a bug on their site, we usually ask for an admin access to check it. Sharing admin credentials might be sensitive, especially when customers share their login. Temporary Login plugin solves this problem, by creating a unique link to access the website as admin without exposing any credentials.
Backup plugins
Another type of plugin that is very helpful to debugging is backup plugins. Sometimes it's hard (and risky) to debug on a customer's live site. And it's not recommended to do so, because a simple typo mistake can break their site. In this case, it's better to create a staging or a clone of their website to check.
I usually use Duplicator to take a full backup of a site and restore it on my localhost. I found it's the fastest and simplest plugin of its type.
When I don't want to create a local site, I usually use InstaWP Connect to create a staging website on InstaWP. But sometimes, I see the plugin doesn't work well, like the migration suddenly stops, or the migrated site has a fatal error that I can't even login to debug.
Misc
There are also some debugging plugins for specific needs that I sometimes use:
- WP Crontrol: for viewing and debugging crons.
- Rewrite Rules Inspector: for viewing and debugging rewrite rules.
- JSM Show Post Metadata: for viewing post meta (e.g. custom fields).
- KAGG Generator: I just discovered this plugin. It generates fake posts at the speed of light. It's like 100 times faster than FakerPress, the plugin that I used to generate fake posts.
I also use some external tools to help to work with databases, like:
- Sequel Ace on Mac or HeidiSQL on Windows
- JSON.pub or Unserialize.com to unserialize PHP strings. FYI, WordPress saves arrays in post meta or options as serialized strings, so we need those tools to unserialize them to get/see the original values.
Those are my list of debugging plugins and tools that I use daily. They're an important part of my development workflow and are must-have tools to support customers.
What plugins and tools do you use the most when developing WordPress themes and plugins? I'd love to explore more. Please let me know in the comments.
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