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Nathalie C
2,594 PointsImproving Wordpress Performance - plugin problems
Just thought I would share as when I tried to install the W3 Total Cache plugin it caused my site to behave erratically. The theme js stopped loading (breaking the accordion menu) and the date filter on custom post live events listing stopped working so past events were being shown as well as future events, instead of just future events. I went straight to my hosting company who suggested looking at plugins first. So first rule to remember, and yes I know Treehouse advises it, I needed to reinforce a note to self: disable plugins at first sign of trouble! This saved me a lot of potential hair pulling. And for me, the W3 Total Cache plugin was a really a good place to start. I hadn't thought the plugin to be the problem, because the problems were very subtle indeed and not obvious at first glance. So I've opted to minify the files externally and enable gzip compression via .htaccess file instead to improve performance.
2 Answers
Zac Gordon
Treehouse Guest TeacherGreat post.
I've had issues with performance plugins having JS or other odd issues.
What I don't really get into in the videos though is that in a lot of cases having a caching plugin doesn't really speed up the site that much. For sites that don't get many many hits per second or minute they can sometimes be left out without any real problems. I think we've got into a practice though of installing a caching plugin on every site (which I may be partially responsible for now with this video ;p)
Matt Campbell
9,767 PointsYes that is a good performance boost however, the underlying fault and issue with your theme is still there.
W3 Total Cache is a very widely used plugin and one of the better ones at not causing problems. I would instead look at the plugins at fault, W3 has simply uncovered some vulnerabilities with them.
It's also worth mentioning that you should try clearing any and all caches after installing W3.