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Recovering a WordPress site that shows a critical error

Last updated: 10/02/2026.

This guide works for any WordPress plugin, not just cache.lat. If after installing or updating a plugin your site shows "There has been a critical error on this website", a white screen, or a 500 error, your content is not lost: it is intact in the database and in your files. It is almost always fixed by deactivating the plugin from outside WordPress, and all you need is access to your files.

Important notice before installing or updating

cache.lat is tested on the latest version of WordPress, but no plugin can guarantee compatibility with every environment: the PHP version, your hosting, the web server and the other installed plugins all play a part, and in rare cases an installation or update may cause an error on the site. Therefore, before installing or updating any plugin, make sure you can access your files by FTP/SFTP or through the cPanel File Manager (or your host's equivalent), and that you have a recent backup. With that access, recovering the site takes a few minutes.

Step 0 — Check your email (it sometimes fixes itself)

Since WordPress 5.2, on a fatal error the site emails the administrator with the subject "Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue" and a recovery mode link. Through that link you can log in and deactivate the faulty plugin from the dashboard. If you did not get the email or the link expired, go to step 1.

Step 1 — Deactivate the plugin from the files

This works even when wp-admin will not load:

1. Log in to your hosting and open the cPanel File Manager (or connect over FTP/SFTP with FileZilla or another client).
2. Go to your site folder (usually public_html) and then wp-content/plugins/.
3. Find the cache-lat-client folder and rename it to cache-lat-client-off.
4. Reload your site. With the folder renamed, WordPress cannot find the plugin and deactivates it on its own.

If the site comes back, go to wp-admin → Plugins: you will see a notice that the plugin was deactivated. The problem was in the plugin.

Step 2 — If the site is still broken: the .htaccess file

cache.lat adds a block of rules to your .htaccess file (between the lines # BEGIN cache.lat and # END cache.lat) to serve static HTML. That block stays there even if you deactivate the plugin. If your site returns a 500 error even with the plugin renamed:

1. In public_html (turn on "show hidden files" in the File Manager) find .htaccess.
2. Download a copy for safety.
3. Open it and delete the whole block from # BEGIN cache.lat to # END cache.lat (leave the # BEGIN WordPress block untouched). Save.
4. Alternative: rename .htaccess to .htaccess.bak, go to wp-admin → Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes; WordPress generates a clean one.

cache.lat also keeps a copy of your original .htaccess as .htaccess.cachelat-bak the first time it modifies it, in case you want to restore it.

Step 3 — Clean up cache.lat files (optional)

• The cache folder in the site root holds the generated static HTML. You can delete it safely: it is only a copy and is regenerated from the plugin.
• The wp-content/cache-lat-plan.php file is a backup of the license status; deleting it does not affect your license.

Step 4 — Reinstall the plugin

1. Delete the cache-lat-client-off folder (or whatever you renamed) from wp-content/plugins/.
2. Download the .zip again from cache.lat, unzip it on your computer and upload the complete cache-lat-client folder to wp-content/plugins/ over FTP. An incomplete upload (missing files) is a common cause of errors.
3. Activate the plugin from wp-admin → Plugins. Your license and settings are still saved; nothing needs reactivating.

If wp-admin will not load and you do not know which plugin fails

Rename the whole wp-content/plugins folder to plugins-off: WordPress deactivates all plugins at once. Log in to wp-admin, restore the plugins name and activate plugins one at a time until you find the one that fails.

How to find the exact cause

In wp-config.php, above the line "That's all, stop editing!", add:

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

The error is recorded in wp-content/debug.log. If the problem is in cache.lat, contact us with that message (no passwords or private data) through support and we will fix it. When you are done, remove those lines.

With WP-CLI (if you have SSH access)

wp plugin deactivate cache-lat-client
wp plugin delete cache-lat-client

What cache.lat already does to reduce the risk

• If plugin files are missing (incomplete install), it does not load and shows a notice instead of breaking the site.
• Automatic updates use WordPress's own system, which since version 5.9 restores the previous version if it detects a fatal error after updating.
• Already-generated HTML keeps being served from your hosting even while the plugin is deactivated.

Even so, the software runs on your hosting and in your environment, which we do not control. Under our terms of service, always keep access to your files and an up-to-date backup.

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