And Why It’s Usually Nothing to Worry About
If you manage a WordPress website, you may occasionally receive an email with a subject like “Your Site Is Experiencing a Technical Issue.”
These alerts can sound alarming, but in most cases, they’re completely normal and nothing to worry about. Here’s why they happen and what you should do when one lands in your inbox.
What Triggers These Emails?
WordPress includes a built-in safety feature called fatal error protection. Whenever a plugin or theme briefly misbehaves—often during routine maintenance—WordPress sends a notice to the site’s admin email.
Common causes include:
- A plugin updating in the background
- A plugin temporarily loading out of order
- A momentary compatibility check
- A theme or plugin refreshing its files
- A timeout on the host during maintenance
These are usually very brief, harmless hiccups that resolve before you ever see anything on the site.
Is the site broken?
Generally, no. Nothing usually appears broken because the issue usually resolves instantly.
You can think of it like a car dashboard that flicks a light on for a second during cold weather: the system noticed a momentary blip, logged it, and moved on.
What Should You Do When You Get One?
- Forward it to us
If you are in the MIGHTYminnow maintenance program, feel free to forward it to us for investigation and reassurance. It can be useful for us to see which plugin triggered the notice, especially if the same plugin does it repeatedly. - Check the website quickly.
Either way, you can take a peek at the website. If everything loads normally, no action is required. - Don’t worry
If pages load fine and you can log into the dashboard, the issue has already been resolved. And if the site is broken, we have your back, so you still don’t need to worry. Just reach out.
Are these messages useful?
Even though they’re often false alarms, they serve a purpose:
- They confirm your site’s health checks are working.
- They tell you exactly which plugin triggered the momentary error.
- They provide a “recovery mode” link if something truly does go wrong.
Most of the time, though, these emails are simply WordPress being proactive—not signaling a real problem.
And as always, if you’re unsure, just forward the message to us, we’re always happy to take a look.
