Exercise 1: Troubleshooting a Fatal Error After a New Plugin Install — Possible Solution ==================================================================== THE RECOMMENDED APPROACH, PER THIS CHAPTER ------------------------------ Per this chapter's own tip-box: "deactivate every plugin, then reactivate them one at a time, checking the site after each one, until the problem reappears - the plugin just reactivated is the culprit." STEP BY STEP ------------------------------ 1. Deactivate ALL currently active plugins, including the newly installed one, not just the one suspected of causing the problem. 2. Check the site - the fatal error should now be gone, since none of the plugin code is currently running. 3. Reactivate plugins one at a time, in any order, checking the site for the fatal error after each single reactivation. 4. The moment the fatal error reappears, the plugin that was JUST reactivated in that step is confirmed as the actual culprit. WHY DEACTIVATING EVERYTHING FIRST, NOT JUST THE NEW PLUGIN ------------------------------ Although a newly installed plugin is the obvious first suspect given the timing, this chapter's method deactivates every plugin rather than assuming the new one is automatically to blame - the real cause could be a conflict between the new plugin and one of the existing ones (per this chapter, "two plugins occasionally modify the same thing in incompatible ways"), which wouldn't be caught by only deactivating the newest plugin alone. Starting from a clean slate and reactivating methodically avoids this blind spot. WHY THIS METHOD IS DESCRIBED AS "SLOW BUT GENUINELY RELIABLE" ------------------------------ Per this chapter, this technique is deliberately systematic rather than guesswork - each reactivation isolates exactly one variable at a time, so when the error reappears, there's no ambiguity about which specific plugin caused it. It takes longer than simply guessing based on timing, but it produces a confirmed, verified answer rather than an assumption. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ It lays out the chapter's own recommended process in the correct order, explains specifically why the method starts by deactivating everything rather than only the newly installed plugin, and explains why the approach trades speed for a genuinely confirmed result rather than a guess.