Urgent Website Bug Fixing

Urgent Website Bug Fix

Urgent bugs — form won't submit, payment fails, page white screen — require different process than planned tasks. Diagnosis speed matters more than perfect code.

Diagnosis: where to look first

Frontend errors:

// Browser DevTools → Console
// Sentry: automatic error collection
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/nextjs';
// On error comes alert with full stacktrace

Backend errors:

# Laravel
tail -f storage/logs/laravel.log
# PHP-FPM
tail -f /var/log/php8.2-fpm.log
# Nginx
tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log
# System
journalctl -u nginx -f
journalctl -u php8.2-fpm -f

Database:

# MySQL: slow queries, deadlocks
tail -f /var/log/mysql/error.log
mysql -e "SHOW PROCESSLIST;" # blocked queries
mysql -e "SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS\G" | grep -A 30 "LATEST DETECTED DEADLOCK"

Server resources:

top              # CPU and memory
df -h            # disk (full disk → 500 errors)
free -m          # swap (swap → slowdowns)
netstat -an | grep ESTABLISHED | wc -l  # connection count

Common urgent bugs and solutions

Form won't submit:

1. Open DevTools → Network — check what POST returns
2. Check CSRF token (Laravel: php artisan key:generate if lost)
3. Check validation — validation errors can silently block

500 Internal Server Error:

# Always start with logs
grep "PHP Fatal" /var/log/nginx/error.log | tail -20
grep "exception" /var/www/mysite/storage/logs/laravel.log | tail -20

Site unavailable (504 Gateway Timeout):

# Check PHP-FPM processes
ps aux | grep php-fpm | wc -l
# Restart
sudo systemctl restart php8.2-fpm nginx

White screen (WSOD) in WordPress:

# Enable debug mode (temporarily!)
wp config set WP_DEBUG true
wp config set WP_DEBUG_LOG true
tail -f wp-content/debug.log

Hotfix without deploy

For truly urgent fixes on production without CI/CD:

# Only for really urgent cases
ssh user@server
cd /var/www/mysite
# Minimal change
nano src/components/ContactForm.tsx
# Rebuild
npm run build
pm2 restart myapp

After fix: post-mortem

Even for small incidents record:

• Discovery time
• Fix time
• Root cause
• How to prevent repeat

Quick bug fix (form, auth, page 500) — 1–4 hours.