Troubleshooting hosting problems

When something goes wrong with your website, it can be hard to tell whether it's a hosting problem, a problem with the site itself, or a DNS issue. This guide helps you work through the most common scenarios.

Who your "host" is depends on how your site is built:

Your setup	Who hosts it
WordPress	A separate hosting company, such as Flywheel, WP Engine or Kinsta.
Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow, Wix	The platform hosts your site for you, so you don't need a separate hosting company. The platform's status page and your plan are the first things to check.
Custom-coded	Your developer's host, such as Vercel or Netlify. Your developer manages it.

Troubleshooter

What's going wrong?

Which of these sounds like your problem?

Before you troubleshoot: check the host's status page

If your site is down or behaving strangely, the first step is always to check whether your host or platform is experiencing a known issue:

Flywheel: Check status.getflywheel.com
WP Engine: Check wpenginestatus.com
Kinsta: Check status.kinsta.com
Squarespace: Check status.squarespace.com
Shopify: Check shopifystatus.com
Webflow: Check status.webflow.com
Wix: Check status.wix.com
Vercel: Check www.vercel-status.com
Netlify: Check www.netlifystatus.com

Not sure which host a custom-coded site uses? Ask your developer.

If there's an active incident, your host is already working on it. All you can do is wait. Status pages list major outages, not always everything: Kinsta, for example, reports problems that affect only a few customers inside MyKinsta instead, so check your hosting dashboard for alerts too. Wix also says some issues affecting a small number of users may not be shown on its status page, and Shopify sometimes shows a banner about a problem in your Shopify admin.

Problem: My site is completely down

Check the host's status page (links above) for active incidents.

Try your site in a private/incognito browser window to rule out browser cache issues.

Ask someone else to try your site from a different network. If they can reach it and you can't, the issue may be with your internet connection or local DNS.

Use an online "is it down for everyone?" checker to see whether the site is unreachable from other locations too.

Check your account and plan. A payment or account problem can take a site offline. Where to look depends on your setup (see below).

Contact us if none of the above resolves the issue or if your account shows a problem.

Log in to your hosting account and see if it shows your site as active or if there's a payment or account issue. See renewing hosting.

Problem: "Not secure" or SSL warning in the browser

Check if the URL starts with https:// and the browser shows no security warning. If the address is plain http:// or the browser says "Not secure", your SSL certificate may not be active.

Check where your SSL comes from. On a WordPress host, log in to your hosting dashboard and check the SSL settings for your site's domain. Look for any error messages. Squarespace and Webflow provide SSL automatically for a domain that's correctly connected, so there's nothing to switch on. On Wix, your domain needs to be connected to your site for SSL to be enabled. On Shopify or a custom-coded site, ask us or your developer.

If DNS was recently changed, give it time. A host can only issue a free certificate once it can verify your domain, usually because DNS points to the host or because a DNS record it asked you to add has taken effect. That can take up to a day or two (Flywheel says up to 48 hours; Kinsta says DNS records can take up to 24 hours to propagate). Webflow and Wix both say to allow up to 48 hours after a DNS change. Squarespace says DNS changes usually take 24 to 48 hours, and occasionally up to 72.

If the URL is https:// but something still looks wrong (a warning, or missing images, styles or scripts), there may be a mixed-content issue: some elements are being requested over plain HTTP, and browsers upgrade or block those requests. On WordPress, this requires a WordPress fix. On Wix, Wix says this happens when an HTML element on your site contains HTTP in its code instead of HTTPS. Whatever your platform, contact us.

On Webflow, if the warning is still there 48 hours after a DNS change, contact us. One thing we'll check: some domains have CAA records that must allow Webflow's certificate providers.

See what is SSL & HTTPS? for background.

Problem: My site is very slow

Check if you're logged in. On WordPress, managed hosts usually leave logged-in sessions out of the page cache, so your experience may be slower than what visitors see. Test in a private browser window.

On a WordPress host, clear the server cache from your hosting dashboard (Flywheel, WP Engine, and Kinsta all have a button for this; see the next section for where).

Check the status page for any performance incidents.

Contact us if slowness persists. On WordPress, there may be a plugin issue or a server resource problem. On Shopify, too many apps (especially ones that load scripts on every page) can slow down your storefront.

See My site is slow for more.

Problem: My changes aren't showing up for visitors

Check the change actually went live. On Webflow and Wix, saving isn't enough: nothing reaches the live site until you publish. On a custom-coded site, the change has to be deployed. See My changes aren't showing up for every platform.

On a WordPress host, clear the server cache from your hosting dashboard. On WordPress, this is the most common cause.

Check in a private/incognito browser window to confirm the cached visitor view.

If on Flywheel: Click Flush Cache on the site's Advanced tab in the Flywheel dashboard.

If on WP Engine: Use Clear all caches on the environment's Cache page in the User Portal, or go to WP Engine > Caching > Clear All Caches in WordPress admin.

If on Kinsta: Go to Sites > (your site) > Caching in MyKinsta and click Clear all caches, which covers the server, CDN and edge caches. (Clearing only the server cache leaves the CDN cache in place; that has its own Clear CDN cache button on the same page.) Or click Clear Cache in the WordPress admin toolbar.

If on Wix: publishing clears Wix's page cache. For stubborn cases, go to Settings in your site's dashboard, search for Website Performance Settings, and click Clear Site Cache.

On Squarespace, Shopify and Webflow, there's usually nothing to clear on your side beyond your browser. If a published change still isn't showing, contact us.

Problem: I can't log in to the hosting dashboard

On Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow and Wix, your hosting login is your account with the platform. See I can't log in to my site for each platform's reset and recovery steps. On a custom-coded site, your developer manages the host account.

For a WordPress hosting company such as Flywheel, WP Engine or Kinsta:

Try the "Forgot password?" option on the login page to reset your credentials.

Check your spam folder for the reset email.

Contact the hosting provider's support directly via their support center or help documentation. They can verify your account and reset access.

Contact us and we can check whether our team can assist with account access.

Problem: Email stopped working after a hosting change

Check your MX records: email relies on DNS MX records that should not have been changed during a hosting migration. See hosting vs email.

Log in to your DNS provider (registrar, Cloudflare, etc.) and verify MX records are intact.

Contact us immediately if MX records were accidentally modified. This is time-sensitive.

Common questions

How do I know if it's a hosting problem or a problem with my site?

On WordPress: if your site shows a WordPress error (like a white screen or a plugin error), it's likely a WordPress/code issue. "Error establishing a database connection" can be either: WordPress's own documentation lists both site configuration mistakes and web host problems as causes. If the server is completely unreachable (browser says "server not found" or connection timed out), it's likely a hosting or DNS issue.

On Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow and Wix, start with the platform's status page, then check your plan and your domain's DNS settings. On a custom-coded site, ask your developer.

Can a plugin cause my site to go down?

On WordPress, yes. A bad plugin update can cause a PHP fatal error that takes your site offline. This is a WordPress-level issue, not a hosting issue. We handle plugin update testing on care plan sites.

Other platforms have their own versions of this: on Shopify, apps can sometimes conflict with your theme or with each other, and on Wix, custom code can have unexpected results that affect your site's performance.

What information should I gather before contacting support?

Your site URL, the exact error message you're seeing (a screenshot is helpful), what you were doing when the problem started, and the time it began. More detail = faster resolution.