Web Troubleshooting: Steps to Diagnose Your Broken Site

If you own a website, knowing how to solve problems on it is essential. If a site doesn’t load, you may be losing visitors and sales, which can affect your search engine rankings.

The positive side to all this is that there are several methods to track and fix website problems. In this article, we’ll discuss why troubleshooting is important, along with 10 tips to help you diagnose your site.

Importance of Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting analysis allows you to identify and correct the root cause of an issue, preventing it from happening again. The sooner you fix issues as a site owner, the better. As it goes on, the more damage it can inflict on your business. Small businesses can lose between $137 to $427 for each minute of downtime.

To diagnose your website, please answer the following questions:

• What’s the problem? When the status code returns with an error message, it will help you fix your problem. If it is a blank page, you will want to enable error logs in your hosting account to find the problem.
• When does it happen? Check if your site is down. If that is the case, contact your hosting provider for assistance.
• Where is the issue? Check whether the issue lies with the client or server. You can correct some issues on the client-side, however, rely on the hosting provider for those on the server-side.
• When does it occur, and under what conditions? Is it when your site does specific things or runs an app? This may aid in isolating the context in which the issue occurs, along with any other relevant conditions.
• Can it be repeated? Try to reproduce the problem on a test system. Create a staging environment if possible and debug the issue.

General Website Troubleshooting Techniques

Here are 10 steps for repairing a website that’s not loading properly:

1. See If the Site Is Down Just for You

The first step is to find out whether the site is down for everyone or just for you. Use a tool such as Site24x7 to find out your website’s status. Input your website’s address, and it will provide you with information such as ping, trace, port, health, and page speed. If your site is down, contact your hosting provider’s support team.

2. Check the Network Connection

Poor internet connection could be the reason why your website is not loading. To do that, try visiting other websites. If they don’t load, your connection isn’t the problem. Try using mobile data; if other websites aren’t loading as well, it is your local network that is at fault. To correct it, reboot your router.

3. Use Another Device

Outdated software on your computer can lead to security, memory, and connection issues. To verify if this is the case, try visiting your site with another device on the same network. If it works, the problem is on your computer. Ensure your software, especially the operating system, is updated frequently.

4. Check for Error Messages in the Browser

Usually, when a webpage won’t load, your browser will report an error with an HTTP status code that helps to identify the problem. Common errors include:

• 403 Forbidden: The server understands the request but refuses to process it.
• 404 Not Found: The server cannot find that page, usually because of a broken link.
• 405 Method Not Allowed: The server recognizes the type of request but can’t fulfill it.
• 500 Internal Server Error: The server encountered an unexpected condition.
• 502 Bad Gateway: An invalid response was received when attempting to process the request.
• 503 Service Unavailable: The server cannot fulfill the request due to maintenance or overload.
• 504 Gateway Timeout: The browser made a request, but the server didn’t respond in time.

5. Try a Different Browser

Your browser may be unable to load pages because of a cache issue. Clear your browser cache to reset the connection and see if the site comes up. If the issue continues, open the page in a different browser.

6. Examine DNS Records

If you recently changed your domain’s nameservers, the DNS records may need to be updated. Such as seeing the DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN tells you that the browser can’t resolve the website’s IP address. To solve this, you can try to release and renew the IP address using the following commands in Windows Command Prompt:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
netsh int ip set dns
netsh winsock reset

On macOS, go to Apple menu → System Settings → Network. Select your network connection, click on Details → TCP/IP, and then click Renew DHCP Lease.

7. Check the Error Logs

Your website may have issues with no error message. Most quality web hosting companies provide an error log that helps you find more details on problems. To access error logs, go to Bread Basket Panel > Server Info > Error Logs (if you’re using Interserver).

8. Use Developer Tools

The default web browsers like Google Chrome have an inspect element tool, which helps you make temporary changes to your site’s frontend code. Whenever your web app has an issue, just open the inspect element tool and check for issues like broken images and code by going to the Console tab at the top-right.

9. Trace Back Recent Changes

Conflicts between plugins or problems arising from recent updates can lead to issues on your website. Deactivate, downgrade, or delete the relevant plugin or theme if it was triggered. If the issue stems from recent code changes, reach out to the developer for assistance.

10. Restore a Backup

If the data is missing or damaged, you may not be able to load your site properly. This allows you to restore your website to a working version if you’ve downloaded a backup. At InterServer, restoring is done via the Breadbasket control panel.

Conclusion

A website troubleshoot helps identify the problem and fix it, preventing it from recurring. If your site’s not loading, use these 10 common steps to troubleshoot the issue:

• Confirm website downtime using status tools.
• Check your internet connection.
• Try a different device on the same network.
• Check for error messages to determine the issue.
• Try a different browser.
• Examine DNS records.
• Check error logs for issues.
• Use developer tools to find broken code.
• Trace back recent changes to identify recent problematic updates.
• Restore from a previous backup if necessary.