Debug Bar

Debug Bar is a WordPress plugin that helps WordPress users and developers quickly identify and troubleshoot issues with their WordPress website. It provides an easy to use interface to debug, profile, and trace errors with your WordPress site.

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What We Think:

84%

Highly recommended!

Debug Bar: A Comprehensive Review

Debug Bar is an extremely useful plugin for anyone who works with WordPress, particularly developers. DebugBar is a must-have tool for anyone dealing with or developing for WordPress websites. This plugin adds a debug menu to the admin bar that provides access to snapshots, modules, and data from within the WordPress environment. DebugBar is especially helpful in quickly troubleshooting issues with WordPress and tracking down the source of the problem.

Debug Bar: Breakdown

DebugBar is a powerful application that assists developers in troubleshooting and sniffing out coding errors in WordPress websites. It adds a new menu item to the admin toolbar in WordPress that opens up a window containing a variety of helpful debugging tools. Debug Bar’s primary feature is the ability to capture and display debug snapshots, which are snapshots of the environment and code execution at a given moment. This allows developers to quickly identify and troubleshoot any issues with the code.

Debug Bar’s snapshot window displays memory usage, PHP errors, hooks, WP queries, global variables, HTTP request information, WordPress constants and filters, and active plugins. It can also rapidly track down the source of an issue, allowing developers to quickly fix the problem before it leads to more issues. Additionally, Debug Bar has a number of modules that give developers insight into the internals of WordPress. This information assists developers in better understanding the logic and mechanics of WordPress and how it interacts with the code.

DebugBar also contains an “Objects” drop-down menu, which provides instant access to important WordPress objects, such as WP_Query, WP_User, and WP_Post. This allows developers to easily view and interact with the different objects and debug more effectively. In addition, Debug Bar also offers full-fidelity of the execution trace of all requests, even those that involve a third-party service. This is helpful for developers who need to determine the source of an issue or diagnose potential problems in their code.

Another helpful feature of Debug Bar is its ability to produce convenient link and button elements. This allows developers to quickly troubleshoot ever more deeply by opening up a browser with instant access to the link and buttons. And finally, Debug Bar is totally free, making it a great option for developers who are just getting started with WordPress or who need extra help troubleshooting an issue.

Pros of Using Debug Bar

Unobtrusive & Lightweight: The Debug Bar plugin is lightweight and won't interfere with your normal workflow or affect your user's experience. With a minimalistic design, the plugin places minimal resources on server-side, making it a great option for websites with a high traffic count. Its slim framerate makes it hard to detect by curious eyes.

Easy to Install & Use: Installing and configuring the debug plugin is hassle-free and it integrates with any WordPress installation. Configuring the plugin can take only a few seconds, and it is easy to activate. Once the plugin is running, the debug bar will appear automatically at the top of each page and provide the user with useful debugging information.

Pinpoint Bottlenecks: Using the Debug Bar plugin, one can identify and fix slow database queries and long page load times. It provides an overview of which WordPress functions are taking the longest to process and enable users to identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks.

Compatible with WordPress Plugins: The Debug Bar plugin is compatible with popular WordPress plugins, making it easy to work with any site and its frameworks. As it supports both WordPress and PHP frameworks, users can easily debug any activity within their WordPress installation.

Customizable Logging: The logging system available in the Debug Bar plugin is fully customizable, allowing users to choose which data should be recorded and which should be ignored. This helps in providing clear visibility into what WordPress is doing in the background and root cause analysis of any issue that arises.

Cons of Using Debug Bar

Sluggish Performance: Debug Bar can slow down the performance of your WordPress website due to its additional queries, which can be an issue for large sites. It is recommended to disable Debug Bar except in situations where we need to troubleshoot, as the slow down might otherwise affect the end-user experience.

Increases Query Load: Debug Bar adds extra database queries while accessing your website to generate information. This can become problematic when multiple users access the website at once, or it is already overloaded with existing queries.

Incompatibility Issues: Debug Bar can be incompatible with certain themes and plugins, as it can conflict with certain scripts running on the website. This is especially an issue with themes and plugins that contain custom code, not being familiar with debug bar.

Security Concerns: Debug Bar can potentially be a security problem, as it can reveal information about your website that shouldn’t be viewable by the public, such as certain files or databases. Therefore, it is important to only have Debug Bar active when needed, such as when troubleshooting with a developer.

More Software Required: In order to make use of the Debug Bar, you need to install an additional piece of software called Query Monitor. Query Monitor provides several extra features, and although it is an added step, it is worth considering if you are already using Debug Bar, as the extra insights can prove to be extremely helpful.

84% Highly recommended!

In conclusion

Debug Bar is an essential tool for anyone involved in WordPress development. It is easy to install and provides a wealth of debugging tools that can help developers quickly solve issues with WordPress websites. The snapshot feature allows developers to see and track debugging information easily and accurately, while the other features provide more insight into deeper debugging and WordPress internals. Finally, Debug Bar is a totally free plugin that is a great starting point for anyone looking to quickly diagnose and troubleshoot issues with WordPress websites.

Plugin Specifications

Version: 1.1.4
Last Updated: 2 years ago
Installs: 30,000+
WP Version: 3.4+
Tested Until: 6.1.4
PHP Version: N/A

Use Case Examples

Debugging Database Queries
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The Debug Bar plugin provides a useful tool to debug database queries. It displays the complete list of queries by WordPress core or by plugins, and their total time and number of queries. The plugin gives detailed information about each query, such as the query string, the number of rows, the query time, and the query type. This makes it easy to pinpoint problem queries and help eliminate any bottlenecks in your website’s performance. This plugin is a must-have for anyone developing WordPress themes or custom plugins that interact with the database.
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