Troubleshooting Errors

When something goes wrong, we want you back to business fast. This guide walks you through simple, reliable steps to diagnose issues with Solid Affiliate and collect the exact details our team needs to help. It’s designed for site owners, developers, and hosting teams alike.

Quick Start (Most Issues)

1. Update first: make sure WordPress, WooCommerce (if used), your theme, and all plugins (including Solid Affiliate) are on the latest versions.
2. Clear caches: purge any page/server/CDN caches. Ensure logged-in pages (e.g., affiliate dashboard) aren’t cached.
3. Reproduce the issue and note the exact time (with timezone), what you clicked, and what you expected vs. what happened.
4. Install WP Debug Toolkit to collect logs and environment info in a few clicks. Use our partner discount code SADOC.
5. Run a conflict test using Health Check’s Troubleshooting Mode (see below) to see if a theme or plugin conflict is involved.
6. Send us the results with your notes at solidaffiliate.com/support.

Terminated Actions & Timeouts

If a process stops abruptly (a page never finishes, a save stalls, or a report times out), your server likely terminated the request. Common causes include PHP time limits, web server timeouts, or a CDN/firewall cutting the connection.

• Maximum Execution Time (PHP): Controlled by max_execution_time in php.ini. Ask your host to increase this only if needed.
• Apache FCGID: FcgidIOTimeout governs how long Apache waits on PHP. ~90 seconds is often sufficient.
• NGINX FastCGI: fastcgi_read_timeout sets the wait time for upstream responses.
• Cloudflare 524: Origin was reached but didn’t respond within 100s. Check origin timeouts and long-running operations.

Important: Timeouts are hosting-level limits. We can advise, but your host must adjust these settings.

Server Errors (3-Digit Codes)

• 500 – Internal Server Error: Typically a PHP error or a conflict with your theme/another plugin.
• 503 – Service Unavailable: Server overloaded or a security system blocking requests.
• 504 – Gateway Timeout: Upstream didn’t respond in time (often heavy processing or low limits).
• 524 – Timeout Occurred (Cloudflare): The origin took too long to respond.

Our support team needs error details from your server to diagnose these. See the next sections to gather them quickly.

Step 1: Capture the Essentials

• Exact time of the error (include timezone). If uncertain, reproduce the issue and note the time precisely.
• Your IP address (whatismyip.com).
• Screenshot with the full browser URL visible.
• Short description of what you did and what you expected to happen.

Tip: Many server logs use UTC. Compare timezones easily at everytimezone.com.

Step 2: Get Logs the Easy Way (WP Debug Toolkit)

WP Debug Toolkit (WPDT) provides a fast, guided path to collect exactly what we need. We’ve partnered with them to offer a discount: use code SADOC.

• Enable/disable WordPress debugging safely (no manual file edits required).
• View PHP, web server, and WordPress logs in one place.

After installing WPDT, reproduce the issue to generate relevant log entries, then copy those logs and send them our way.

Step 3: Ask Your Host for Server Error Logs

If WPDT isn’t available or you want direct server logs, ask your host to provide the relevant entries from around the time of the error. Include the details you captured in Step 1. Here’s a template you can paste:

Hi Support. We’re investigating an issue with the Solid Affiliate plugin. Could you please check the server error logs for entries around [DATE + TIME + TIMEZONE]? Here are details: • Affected URL: [paste URL] • My IP: [paste IP] • What happened: [1–2 sentence summary] Please send the relevant entries from the PHP error log, web server log (Apache/NGINX), and database log (MySQL/MariaDB), including any timeout or memory errors. Thank you!

Note: If your host says there’s “nothing in the logs,” ask them to confirm logging is enabled and that they’re checking the correct logs for your site and time window.

Step 4: Verify Server Limits

• PHP: memory_limit (recommend 512M+), max_execution_time, max_input_vars, post_max_size, upload_max_filesize.
• Web Server: Apache FcgidIOTimeout or NGINX fastcgi_read_timeout tuned for your workload.
• CDN/WAF: Ensure admin endpoints (e.g., wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, REST API) aren’t blocked or rate-limited.

Your host can confirm and adjust these safely.

Step 5: Send Everything to Solid Affiliate Support

Open a ticket at solidaffiliate.com/support and include:

• Your notes: time (with timezone), IP, screenshot, steps to reproduce.
• Logs: WP Debug Toolkit logs or relevant server log excerpts from the same time window.
• System report: If using WooCommerce, go to WooCommerce → Status → Get system report and paste it.
• Site Health: Tools → Site Health → Info → Copy site info and include it.

We’ll review and get back with specific next steps.

Manual WordPress Debugging (Optional)

If you prefer to enable logging manually (instead of using WP Debug Toolkit), add the following to wp-config.php above the line that says “That’s all, stop editing!”, then reproduce the issue:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); // Logs to wp-content/debug.log
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false ); // Hide errors from visitors
define( 'SCRIPT_DEBUG', true ); // Optional, for asset debugging

After testing, download /wp-content/debug.log and include relevant entries in your message to us. Remember to set WP_DEBUG back to false when finished.

Caching, CDN, & Security Tips

• Logged-in pages (affiliate dashboard, account pages) should not be page-cached.
• Exclude wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, REST API endpoints (/wp-json/), and callback/webhook URLs from caching and WAF challenges.
• Temporarily disable aggressive bot/protection modes to test.

“My Host Can’t/Won’t Help”

Hosting support must provide or enable error logging. If you can’t obtain logs via your host, use WP Debug Toolkit (discount code SADOC) to gather PHP/WordPress logs yourself, then send those to us.

Recap: What to Send Us

• Time of the issue (with timezone), your IP, screenshot with URL visible.
• Steps to reproduce (bullet points are fine).
• WP Debug Toolkit logs or relevant server logs (PHP, web server, database) from the same time window.
• WooCommerce system report (if applicable) and Site Health info.
• Any conflict-test findings (which plugin/theme triggers the issue).

If any step here isn’t clear or you get stuck, tell us in your ticket. We’re happy to help.