I was trying to work on our own website yesterday (this website) and there was a problem with the WordPress editor. We use the Classic Editor and the "Text" tab didn't work, I couldn't use the "Add Media" button, and some other things didn't work. I was stuck. I couldn't make edits on any pages.
Of course, I sent an email to our Website Maintenance Team to investigate what was going on.
In a short time (this morning), my team replied:
"We checked the editor and we see that there is a conflict with the Yoast SEO Plugin. We have fixed the editor issue by rollback the Yoast SEO Plugin to the previous version. We will check the plugin in the next version and fix this editor issue if still exists. Now the visual/ Text editor is working fine on the edit page."
And now, it works. I can make edits.
I would have never thought to check that, but my team was able to diagnose the issue and get it working.
WordPress Plugin Conflicts Are Very CommonWe've seen about 20% of WordPress updates go wrong. That's right, when we update plugins for our clients weekly (in our Website Care), there are conflicts about 20% of the time. The important thing to note here is that this is because we do testing. I would guess most WordPress website owners just click a few links to do plugin updates (or use the automatic updates in WordPress - not a good idea), assume things went fine, and go on about their day.
That's not good. Testing should ALWAYS be done. If the failure rate is around 20%, doing that testing is crucial.
What if your contact form doesn't work?
What if your e-commerce stops working after that update?
If it's not tested, you'll never know or you'll know too late as you're losing leads and sales.
Frankly, I think our Website Care service is too cheap. It's just like $12 a week and it's done by real humans - it's not automated. We have our team checking things over, testing forms and other site features. It's like cheap website insurance - it's a steal.
If your website is an important (or vital) part of your business, it's important to have WordPress upgrades/updates done correctly and have them tested. I don't know of many business websites that aren't important for their business today.
Don't assume, don't just wing it but get a team of experts like we have to help support your WordPress website. Hey, even we need support for our own websites and we're a website design company... I don't know how some companies go on with no support at all.
-Tony
