Emergency WordPress support for sites that are down, hacked or broken

Your business can't wait on a ticket queue. Whether IT flagged it, marketing found it, or you're the one who noticed first — CriticalWP diagnoses and resolves business-critical WordPress emergencies fast, with direct access to people who actually fix things.

What is WordPress emergency support? Also called emergency WordPress help or recovery, it is rapid diagnosis and repair of a broken or compromised WordPress site, such as a white screen, 500 error, malware infection, plugin conflict, or database failure. CriticalWP helps non-subscribers regardless of host, aims to respond within a few hours during business hours, and quotes the cost after scoping the issue. Priority support is built into the Managed Stability plan. Describe your issue or see managed plans.

When your site breaks, every minute costs your organization.

A broken WordPress site isn't just an inconvenience — it's lost leads, lost revenue, and a hit to how your organization looks to the customers, partners, or stakeholders trying to reach it right now. Whether the site went down after an update, got hit by malware, or threw a critical error out of nowhere, the clock is running against the business, not just the page.

CriticalWP provides direct, no-nonsense emergency support. We diagnose the problem, communicate clearly, and fix it — without the runaround. No ticket queues, no waiting for a junior rep to escalate, and no chasing down whichever internal team ends up owning the fire drill. You deal directly with someone who knows WordPress deeply.

If you're a CriticalWP managed plan subscriber, emergency support is built into your relationship with us. If you're on a third-party host and this is happening because no one internally is formally accountable for the site's operations, that's a pattern worth fixing at the root — not just this one incident.

  • Site Down / White Screen of Death

    Critical errors, fatal PHP issues, and blank screens diagnosed and resolved at the root cause — not just patched.

  • Malware & Hack Recovery

    Malware removal, backdoor cleanup, and hardening to prevent re-infection. Full site integrity check included.

  • Broken Update Recovery

    Plugin or theme update broke something? We identify the conflict, roll back if needed, and restore functionality.

  • Plugin Conflicts & Fatal Errors

    Systematic diagnosis of plugin and theme conflicts — identified, resolved, and documented so it doesn't happen again.

  • Database & Server Errors

    Database connection failures, table corruption, and server configuration errors diagnosed and corrected.

WordPress site down? Do these five things first

These steps protect your data while you wait for help, and they give us what we need to start faster.

  1. Stop changing things. Do not run more updates, install plugins or restore random backups until the cause is known.
  2. Note what changed last. An update, a new plugin, a hosting change or a password reset is usually the clue.
  3. Check your host's status page and email. Some outages and suspensions come from the host, not WordPress.
  4. Save what you can. If you can still reach your host's control panel, download a copy of the files and database before anything is fixed.
  5. Describe the problem to us with your site URL. Suspect a hack? Do not log in from a device you think is compromised, and change passwords only once the site is clean.

Want to look first? Our guides cover the white screen of death, the critical error message, the 500 internal server error, a database connection error and a hacked WordPress site.

Common WordPress emergencies we handle

If your WordPress site is broken, there's a good chance we've seen and fixed this exact issue before.

White Screen of Death

A blank white screen typically signals a fatal PHP error or memory limit issue. We diagnose the exact cause — plugin conflict, theme error, or server configuration — and resolve it at the root.

Malware & Hacked Sites

Full malware scan and removal, backdoor detection and cleanup, file integrity check, and security hardening to prevent re-infection. We restore your site and close the door behind us.

Recently resolved: a malware infection causing malicious code, unauthorized access, and fake CAPTCHA injections — identified, contained, and cleaned by our WordPress security team.

Broken Updates

WordPress core, plugin, or theme updates that break your site. We identify the conflicting component, roll back where necessary, and restore full functionality — then advise on safe update practices.

Plugin & Theme Conflicts

Systematic conflict isolation — we identify which combination of plugins or themes is causing the issue and resolve it without wiping out functionality you depend on.

Database Errors

"Error establishing a database connection" and related database failures — connection issues, table corruption, and configuration errors diagnosed and corrected.

Locked Out of WordPress

Lost admin access due to a plugin conflict, failed login, or security lockout? We restore access securely without compromising your site's integrity.

How emergency support works

No ticket queues. No guesswork. A clear process from first contact to resolved.

Contact Us

Submit your request and describe what's happening. Include your site URL and what changed right before the issue appeared.

Diagnosis

We assess the issue, identify the root cause, and communicate clearly about what broke and why before touching anything.

Fix & Restore

We resolve the issue at the source — not a temporary patch. Where possible, we work from a backup to restore cleanly.

Post-Fix Review

We confirm full functionality, document what was fixed, and advise on preventive steps so the same issue doesn't recur.

Emergency support questions

Use our Get Started page to describe what is happening and include your site URL and what changed right before the issue. We respond, scope the problem and quote the cost before any work begins. We work with sites on any host.
Stop making changes, note what changed last (an update, plugin, or hosting change), check your host's status page, save a copy of your files and database if you can, and contact us with the details. Avoid restoring old backups blindly until the cause is known.
Yes. We clean malware and backdoors, close the access point and harden the site to reduce re-infection, whether or not it is hosted with us. See our guide to a hacked WordPress site for the warning signs.
Emergency support is a one-time fix for a site that is already broken, quoted by scope. A managed plan prevents many emergencies through tested updates, security hardening and monitoring, and Managed Stability includes priority support.
No. We assist with emergency WordPress issues regardless of your current hosting provider. Reach out via our Get Started page, describe your situation, and we'll respond promptly.
We prioritize emergency requests and aim to respond within a few hours during business hours. For managed plan subscribers, priority support is built into the Managed Stability plan.
Your site URL, a description of what's happening, what changed right before the issue appeared (an update, a new plugin, a hosting change), and admin access or FTP credentials once we're engaged.
In many cases, yes — depending on the nature of the issue. Malware removal and plugin conflict fixes typically don't require a backup. For more severe issues, recovery options depend on what's available on your server or host.
It's a malware pattern where injected malicious code displays a fake "I'm not a robot" or CAPTCHA verification prompt to visitors, tricking them into running a malicious command or downloading malware onto their own device — the site itself becomes the delivery mechanism. It's often paired with unauthorized backend access, so removing the visible prompt alone isn't enough; the underlying access point has to be found and closed too. We've identified and fully cleaned this exact infection on client sites.
Emergency support for non-subscribers is quoted based on the scope of the issue. Contact us with your situation and we'll give you a clear assessment and cost before any work begins. For managed plan subscribers on the Managed Stability plan, priority support is included.

Site down or hacked? Tell us what happened.

Describe what's happening and we'll get back to you fast. This is exactly what a Managed Stability plan exists to prevent — priority support built in, not billed as a one-off emergency.