A broken website is an emergency: every hour down is lost customers. As someone who specializes in bug and error fixing, these are the eight errors I get called about most — and how each one actually gets fixed.

1. The 500 Internal Server Error

The most dreaded vague error in existence. It usually means a corrupted configuration file or a PHP fatal error. The fix: check the server error logs (they almost always name the culprit), then repair or replace the offending file. Ten minutes for a pro, ten hours of panic for everyone else.

2. The White Screen of Death

Your site loads as a blank white page. Nine times out of ten it is a plugin or theme conflict — often right after an update. Fix it by disabling everything and re-enabling one by one, or restoring from backup if you have one.

3. "Error Establishing a Database Connection"

Your site cannot talk to its database. Causes: wrong credentials in the config file, a corrupted database, or a maxed-out hosting server. The fix ranges from a one-line credential correction to a database repair — but never guess; check the logs first.

4. The Site Was Hacked

Spam pages, redirects to scam sites, Google warning visitors away. Cleanup means removing every malicious file (not just the obvious ones), closing the entry point — usually an outdated plugin — and hardening security so it does not happen again. Partial cleanups always get reinfected.

5. SSL / "Not Secure" Warnings

Browsers now scare visitors away from sites without HTTPS. Usually a missing or expired certificate, or mixed content (a secure page loading insecure images). A proper SSL setup plus a mixed-content sweep fixes it permanently.

6. Everything Broke After an Update

The classic. One click, total chaos. This is why professionals update on a staging copy first and always have a fresh backup. Recovery is usually a rollback plus a careful, tested re-update.

7. Contact Form Stopped Sending

Your form says "thank you" but nothing arrives. Almost always an email deliverability problem: the server mail function flagged as spam, or no proper SMTP setup. Configuring authenticated SMTP fixes the vast majority of cases.

8. Suddenly Slow or Timing Out

A site that worked fine yesterday and crawls today usually has a runaway process, a traffic spike overwhelming cheap hosting, or a newly introduced heavy script. Server logs and a quick performance profile find it fast.

Don't Let a Broken Site Sit

Every one of these gets worse — and more expensive — the longer it waits. If your site is down or acting strange, send me the error message. I diagnose most issues within hours, and most fixes land the same day.