Solid Security is built by experts in WordPress and web security, and designed to “just work” without users needing to be security experts. You’re a professional, but you don’t need to be a web professional to use this tool.
The experts that built Solid Security also baked into it a way for other web professionals to be able to interact with the software and troubleshoot issues that may arise: Solid Security Debug Mode.
Because it’s designed for web geeks experts, it requires adding the following line to your WordPress configuration file (also called wp-config.php):
define( 'ITSEC_DEBUG', true );Learn to confidently edit the wp-config.php file in this article.
The Solid Security Debug Screen #
Once you’ve added the ITSEC_DEBUG constant (via the above line added to wp-config.php), that enables a new screen under the Security menu item at Security > Debug:
Important Note: The Debug page is NOT merely a diagnostic tool. You can cause irreparable damage to your site’s database from this screen, so be sure and always have a backup (with knowledge of how to restore that backup) before modifying anything on this page.
At the top of the debug screen there’s handy system Info, which is often useful when reaching out for support to the SolidWP Support team.
Debug Settings #
The true power of the Debug screen is the Setting section. Each feature of Solid Security and all settings can be both seen and edited in the settings section of the debug screen. This type of information is handy for triple-checking that the setting, while apparently saved correctly on the main Settings screen, actually is saved correctly in the database itself. One common use case is loading a particular setting on two different sites, (one where a problem is replicable and another where it’s not) and comparing the related settings.
Once you load a particular setting, you can edit and save it. Keep in mind that this is a “blunt tool” and not designed for novice use. You’re actually modifying the site’s database by saving things here, so keep that in mind.
Debug Scheduler #
Solid Security runs various actions via a background process meanager called Action Scheduler. This section of the debug screen shows you what actions are scheduled, when they will “fire” or run next, and how often they are scheduled to run. There’s also a link on each scheduled action to manually run it right now.
Debug Notification Center #
Emails are one of those things in WordPress that are just inherently difficult to troubleshoot. Is the site sending the message and it’s getting caught in a spam filter, or is it not sending at all? Solid Security notifications are all logged in the Debug screen’s notification center so that you can know with relative certainty that Solid Security sent the message (at least sent it out to wp_mail() to be sent).
