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Having just lived through a minor site meltdown, I can tell you firsthand about the importance of error reports when it comes to tracking down problems. The only thing is… it’s too late to install a preventative measure like this after your site goes toes-up.

So take five minutes and install a simple error-log code in your site. Future-You will be so happy that you did!

Philip M. “Frumph” Hofer wrote a handy tutorial on this waaaaay back in 2010. And just recently, Joost de Valk (creator of Yoast.com) posted a handy tutorial on GitHub.

You’ll see two spots of code below. The first, you will use a text editor to create a simple PHP file called logging-helper.php. FTP into your site and upload this file into the wp-content/mu-plugins folder. If you don’t have an mu-plugins folder, feel free to create one.

Copy that second bit of code, and add it to your wp-config.php file.

Now, when you need to track problems on your site, path to YOUR-URL.com\wp-content\fatal-error.log and you’ll get a no-frills, pared-down look at what’s happening in the event you get the “white screen of death.”