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NectarPress Troubleshooting Guide

Before contacting support, run wp nectarpress doctor and include the output in your email. This resolves ~60% of issues before a reply is needed.

Quick Diagnostics

# Full health check (safe, no data modified)
wp nectarpress doctor

# JSON output for automated parsing
wp nectarpress doctor --format=json

# License state
wp nectarpress license status

# Wizard state
wp nectarpress setup

Common Issues

Theme options not saving

Symptom: Changes in Theme Options don't persist after clicking Save.

Causes & fixes:

  1. Nonce expired — stay on the options page for <12 hours before saving
  2. Caching plugin — add /wp-admin/ to the "Never Cache" list in your caching plugin
  3. PHP memory limit — check wp nectarpress doctor for memory warnings; increase memory_limit to 256M
  4. WP_DEBUG active with notices — notices can corrupt JSON responses; set WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY = false

License activation fails

Symptom: "Activation failed" or "Domain already active" error during wizard or license page.

Fixes:

  1. Check for extra spaces in the key — copy-paste can sometimes include invisible characters
  2. Domain mismatch — the key activates against the exact domain you're on. www.example.com and example.com are different domains. Use whichever matches your WordPress siteurl.
  3. Already activated — the key may be active on another domain. Log in to nectardigit.com/account and deactivate the other domain first, or contact support if the domain no longer exists.
  4. Firewall blocking outbound connections — your server may be blocking connections to license.nectardigit.com. Ask your host to whitelist outbound HTTPS to that domain.
  5. Evaluation expired — evaluation tokens expire after 14 days. Purchase a license at nectardigit.com.

Wizard keeps reappearing

Symptom: The setup wizard redirects you to it every time you log in to admin.

Fixes:

  1. Complete all required steps — the wizard only marks itself complete at Step 7 (Done screen)
  2. AJAX blocked — your security plugin or firewall may be blocking the AJAX calls that save wizard state. Check the browser console for 403 errors on admin-ajax.php
  3. Multiple admin accounts — each admin user has their own wizard state. If another admin hasn't completed the wizard, they'll see it on their login. Force-complete via CLI: wp nectarpress setup --reset then complete as that user, or mark complete: wp option update nectarpress_wizard_completed "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)"

Demo content import stuck

Symptom: Progress bar stops at N% and nothing happens.

Fixes:

  1. PHP timeout — increase max_execution_time = 300 in php.ini
  2. Memory exhausted — check PHP error log for Fatal error: Allowed memory size; increase to 256M
  3. Use WP-CLI instead — AJAX imports time out on shared hosting; CLI imports don't: 
    wp nectarpress demo import enterprise-daily --yes
  4. Resume interrupted import — re-run the import command; idempotency means already-created items are skipped

Khalti payment not completing

Symptom: User is redirected back from Khalti but payment shows as pending.

Root cause: NectarPress always calls Khalti's /lookup/ endpoint on return to verify payment server-side. This can fail if:

  1. Khalti credentials are wrong — verify at NectarPress → Payments → Khalti Settings
  2. Test mode in production — the test key (test_public_key_...) only works against Khalti's sandbox. Switch to live credentials for production
  3. Return URL mismatch — the URL you registered in Khalti's merchant dashboard must match your WordPress siteurl
  4. Firewall blocking Khalti API — your server must be able to reach https://khalti.com/api/v2/

Check the payment log at NectarPress → Orders → Failed Payments for the exact error code from Khalti's API response.

Breaking news ticker not showing

Symptom: The trending strip at the top is empty or hidden.

Fixes:

  1. No recent posts — the ticker shows posts from the last 3 days by default. Publish a post or change the "days" setting in Theme Options → Tab 2 Breaking News
  2. Ticker disabled — check Theme Options → Tab 1 General → Show Trending Strip
  3. Header preset — some minimal presets hide the ticker; check Header Builder settings
  4. Transient cache — the ticker is cached for 1 hour. Clear: wp transient delete --all or wp cache flush

File integrity alert (modified files)

Symptom: Red admin notice about modified theme files.

When it's expected: - After a theme update (re-baseline after verifying the update is legitimate) - After manual hotfixes to theme files

When it's a problem: - Unexpected modifications with unknown timestamps - Modifications during off-hours when no updates were applied

To rebaseline after a legitimate update: 

wp nectarpress doctor  # confirm the modifications listed look expected
Then: NectarPress → Security → File Integrity → Rebaseline

If you suspect intrusion: See security.md — What To Do If You Suspect Compromise.

Theme update fails / stuck in maintenance mode

Symptom: The site shows "Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance" after an update attempt.

Fix:

  1. Delete the .maintenance file in your WordPress root: rm /path/to/public_html/.maintenance
  2. If the update partially applied, use the rollback: wp nectarpress update rollback
  3. If rollback is unavailable, restore from backup

Prevention: Always ensure wp-content/themes/ is writeable and has at least 50 MB free space before applying updates. wp nectarpress doctor warns on low disk space.

Admin dashboard very slow

Symptom: WordPress admin loads in 5–10 seconds.

Diagnosis:

  1. Install Query Monitor plugin temporarily
  2. Load the slow admin page with QM active
  3. Check the Queries panel for slow queries (>100ms) or high query counts (>50)

Common culprits:

  • Autoloaded options table — wp nectarpress doctor warns when the options table has large autoloaded data
  • Missing object cache — editorial dashboard aggregations without Redis run 3× more queries
  • N+1 in custom homepage sections — each section widget running individual post queries instead of batched ones

Quick fix: Install Redis Object Cache plugin and configure Redis on your server.

Enabling Debug Mode

Add to wp-config.php (development only — NEVER on production):

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);   // logs to /wp-content/debug.log
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false); // don't show errors on screen
define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);      // loads unminified JS/CSS
define('SAVEQUERIES', true);       // enables query log in Query Monitor

NectarPress respects SCRIPT_DEBUG and loads unminified versions of its own scripts when it's set to true.

Contacting Support

Email: support@nectardigit.com

Include in your email: 1. Output of wp nectarpress doctor --format=json 2. WordPress version (wp core version) 3. PHP version (php --version) 4. Your NectarPress plan/tier 5. Exact error message or screenshot 6. Steps to reproduce

Response times: - Enterprise: same business day - Business: next business day - Professional: 2 business days - Starter: 3 business days

Do not include your full license key, database credentials, or wp-config.php in your email. The doctor output is safe to share.