Common Issues & Solutions – Wbcom Designs Docs

Start with these quick fixes before diving into specific problems:

Clear all caches — browser cache, WordPress cache, and any caching plugin
Flush permalinks — go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes
Check for plugin conflicts — deactivate other plugins temporarily to isolate the issue
Update everything — WordPress core, your theme, and all plugins

Installation Problems

Plugin fails to activate

Symptoms: Error message when clicking Activate.

Solutions:

Confirm PHP 7.4+ is installed — check Tools → Site Health → Info → Server
Confirm WordPress 5.8+ is installed
Confirm the free WB Ad Manager plugin is installed and active first
Re-download the Pro plugin ZIP and reinstall — the file may be corrupted
Check file permissions (755 for folders, 644 for files)

License activation fails

Symptoms: “Invalid license key” message or connection error.

Solutions:

Copy the entire license key — avoid extra spaces at the start or end
Confirm your site domain matches the domain registered at purchase
Check that your server can make outgoing HTTP requests
Contact support at wbcomdesigns.com/support with your order number

Page Display Problems

Shortcode shows as plain text

Symptoms: You see [wbam_advertiser_dashboard] displayed literally on the page instead of the portal.

Solutions:

Confirm both the free and Pro plugins are activated
Check the shortcode spelling — shortcodes are case-sensitive
Switch temporarily to a default WordPress theme (Twenty Twenty-Four) to rule out a theme conflict
Check your browser console for JavaScript errors (Right-click → Inspect → Console)

Page shows 404 / Page not found

Solutions:

Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes to flush rewrite rules
Confirm the page is published (not draft)
Confirm the page URL is set correctly in WB Ad Manager → Pro Settings → Pages

Blank or white page

Solutions:

Increase PHP memory limit to at least 256MB
Enable WordPress debug mode and check the error log (see Debug Mode section below)
Test with the default theme active

Ad Display Problems

Ads not showing

Checklist:

[ ] The ad status is Active
[ ] The ad’s start date has passed
[ ] The ad’s end date hasn’t passed yet
[ ] The ad is assigned to the zone you’re referencing in the shortcode
[ ] The zone slug in the shortcode matches the actual zone slug
[ ] The ad budget hasn’t been exhausted

Solutions:

Edit the ad and confirm its status is Active
Try displaying by specific ID: [wbam_ad id="123"]
Go to WB Ad Manager → Ad Zones and confirm the zone slug

Ad clicks not tracking

Solutions:

Confirm click tracking is enabled in Pro Settings → Analytics
Clear any caching — cached pages don’t update click counts
Test in a private / incognito browser window — ad blockers interfere with tracking
Verify the ad destination URL is valid

Payment Problems

Payment form not loading

Solutions:

Confirm the payment gateway is enabled in Pro Settings → Payments
Confirm API keys are entered correctly (no extra spaces)
Ensure your site uses HTTPS — Stripe and PayPal require it
Test in an incognito window without extensions

Payment completes but wallet isn’t credited

Solutions:

Confirm the webhook URL is correctly configured in your payment provider dashboard
Verify the webhook signing secret matches what’s in your WordPress settings
Check your payment provider’s webhook delivery log for errors
Look for errors in your WordPress debug log

For Stripe specifically:

The webhook URL should be:

https://yoursite.com/wp-json/wbam-pro/v1/stripe/webhook

Manual payment request not appearing for approval

Go to WB Ad Manager → Advertisers → Transactions
Click the Pending Approval tab
If the request isn’t there, the advertiser may not have completed the submission — ask them to check their Wallet tab for a pending transaction

Campaign Problems

Campaign won’t activate / “insufficient balance” error

CPM and CPC campaigns with a budget require sufficient wallet balance to reserve the full budget amount before activation.

Solution: Ask the advertiser to add funds to their wallet equal to or greater than the campaign budget, then try activating again.

Campaign showing 0 impressions

Confirm at least one ad is assigned to the campaign
Confirm the campaign status is Active (not Draft, Pending, or Paused)
Confirm the campaign start date has passed
Confirm the ad zone is placed on a live page and receiving traffic

Campaign paused unexpectedly

The campaign’s reserved budget may be exhausted
The impressions limit may have been reached
An admin may have paused it manually — check the Audit Log

Email Problems

Email notifications not sending

Solutions:

Test whether WordPress email works at all — install WP Mail SMTP and send a test email
Check spam / junk folders
Verify the recipient email address in the notification settings is correct
Check that the email template isn’t blank in Pro Settings → Emails

Emails going to spam

Set up SMTP authentication using a plugin like WP Mail SMTP
Configure SPF and DKIM DNS records for your sending domain
Avoid spam-trigger words in email subjects and body content

User Access Problems

Advertiser can’t access their dashboard

Solutions:

Confirm the user is logged in
Confirm the advertiser account status is Active (not Pending or Suspended) — check WB Ad Manager → Advertisers
Flush permalinks and confirm the dashboard page is published
Test with a freshly created account

Debug Mode

When you can’t identify a problem, enable debug logging for more detail.

Add these lines to your wp-config.php file:

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

Errors are written to /wp-content/debug.log. Share the relevant entries with support.

Contacting Support

When contacting support, include:

WordPress version
WB Ad Manager Free version
WB Ad Manager Pro version
PHP version (check Tools → Site Health)
Theme name and version
The exact error message
Steps to reproduce the problem
A screenshot if possible

Support: wbcomdesigns.com/support