Common Issues & Solutions

Get Started

This guide covers the most common problems reported by WB Ad Manager users and how to fix them quickly.

Before You Start — Quick Fixes

Try these steps first. They resolve the majority of issues.

  1. Clear all caches — Clear your browser cache, your WordPress caching plugin cache, and your CDN cache if you use one
  2. Flush permalinks — Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes without changing anything
  3. Test without caching — Open an incognito or private browser window and check if the issue still appears
  4. Disable other plugins temporarily — Go to Plugins, deactivate all plugins except WB Ad Manager, and test again to identify conflicts

Installation Issues

Plugin Won’t Activate

What you see: “Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error”

Solutions:
1. Check your PHP version — WB Ad Manager requires PHP 7.4 or higher. Go to Tools → Site Health → Info → Server to see your PHP version
2. Check your WordPress version — the plugin requires WordPress 5.8 or higher
3. Increase your PHP memory limit to at least 128MB — contact your hosting provider if you are not sure how
4. Check your server’s error log for the specific error message

The WB Ad Manager Menu Is Missing

Solutions:
1. Clear your browser cache and refresh the admin page
2. Log out and log back in to WordPress
3. Confirm your user account has the Administrator role
4. Try deactivating and reactivating the plugin

Ad Display Issues

Ads Are Not Showing

Work through this checklist:

  • Is the ad published? (Not a draft — check the status in WB Ad Manager → Ads)
  • Is the ad assigned to the correct zone?
  • Does the zone slug in your shortcode match exactly what is in WB Ad Manager → Ad Zones? Slugs are case-sensitive.
  • Has the start date passed? Has the end date expired?
  • Do the display rules exclude the current page? (Check the targeting settings on the ad)
  • Does the device targeting exclude your current device?

Debug step: Try displaying the specific ad by ID to isolate whether the issue is the zone or the ad itself:

[wbam_ad id="123"]

Shortcode Shows as Plain Text

What you see: The shortcode text appears on the page instead of an ad, for example: [wbam_ad zone="sidebar"]

Solutions:
1. Confirm the plugin is activated in Plugins → Installed Plugins
2. Check the shortcode spelling — wbam_ad is the correct format
3. Remove any extra spaces inside the shortcode brackets
4. Try on a different page or post
5. Temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme to check for theme conflicts

Wrong Ad Size

Solutions:
1. Check the dimensions of your uploaded image — it should match your zone size
2. Use the size parameter to set the display size: [wbam_ad zone="sidebar" size="300x250"]
3. Add responsive CSS to your theme’s stylesheet:
css
.wbam-ad img {
max-width: 100%;
height: auto;
}

The Same Ad Keeps Showing

Causes: Only one ad is in the zone, or an aggressive cache is serving the same page repeatedly.

Solutions:
1. Assign more ads to the zone in the ad editor
2. Clear all caches — plugin cache, browser cache, CDN cache
3. Test in a private browser window
4. Check the zone’s rotation type in WB Ad Manager → Ad Zones

Click Tracking Issues

Clicks Are Not Being Recorded

Solutions:
1. Go to WB Ad Manager → Settings → Tracking and confirm that Track Clicks is enabled
2. Verify the destination URL starts with http:// or https://
3. Test in a private browser window — ad blocker extensions can prevent tracking scripts from running
4. Open your browser’s developer tools, go to the Console tab, and look for any JavaScript errors
5. If you use a CDN, check that AJAX requests to your site are not cached

Analytics Dashboard Shows Zero

Solutions:
1. Wait a few minutes after testing — stats may be written with a short delay
2. Clear your plugin and browser caches
3. Check that Exclude Admins is not hiding your own test clicks (go to Settings → Tracking)
4. Verify the plugin’s database tables were created correctly by deactivating and reactivating the plugin

Solutions:
1. Confirm the link ID you are using is correct — check the ID column in WB Ad Manager → Links
2. Verify the link is published, not a draft
3. Double-check your shortcode syntax: [wbam_link id="123"]
4. If filtering by category, confirm the category slug matches exactly

Partnership Form Does Not Submit

What you see: The form appears to submit but nothing happens, or no admin notification email arrives.

Solutions:
1. Open browser developer tools and check the Console for JavaScript errors
2. Check the Network tab in developer tools for failed AJAX requests
3. Test whether WordPress can send email at all — use a plugin like WP Mail SMTP
4. Check your spam or junk folder for the admin notification
5. Ensure your caching plugin is not caching the form page — exclude it from caching

Partnership Emails Are Not Arriving

Solutions:
1. Confirm the admin email in Settings → General is correct
2. Install and configure WP Mail SMTP for reliable email delivery
3. Check your spam folder
4. Ask your hosting provider if outbound PHP mail is blocked

Performance Issues

Pages Loading Slowly

Solutions:
1. Enable Lazy Load Ads in WB Ad Manager → Settings → Performance — ads below the fold will only load when scrolled to
2. Enable Cache Ad Queries in the same settings tab
3. Reduce the number of ad placements per page (3 to 5 is a good target)
4. Compress banner images before uploading — use a tool like Squoosh or TinyPNG
5. Disable unused modules in Settings → Modules

High Database Resource Usage

Solutions:
1. Shorten the data retention period in Settings → Tracking → Keep Stats For
2. Enable Archive Old Stats to compress historical data
3. Use a database optimization plugin like WP-Optimize
4. Reduce the frequency of automatic ad rotation

Layout and Styling Issues

Ads Are Breaking Your Page Layout

Solutions:
1. Add this CSS to your theme’s stylesheet to contain ads:
css
.wbam-ad {
max-width: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
}
2. Use your browser’s inspector tool to identify which element is overflowing
3. Verify your zone size matches the available space in your layout

Ads Are Not Responsive on Mobile

Add this CSS to make all ads responsive:

.wbam-ad {
    width: 100%;
    max-width: 100%;
}

.wbam-ad img {
    max-width: 100%;
    height: auto;
}

Conflicts with Other Plugins

Some plugin types commonly cause conflicts with ad management plugins.

Plugin Type Typical Issue
Caching plugins Stale ads, click tracking failures
Security plugins Blocked AJAX requests, false positives
JavaScript optimization plugins Broken tracking scripts
Page builders Shortcode not rendering

How to Test for Plugin Conflicts

  1. Deactivate all plugins except WB Ad Manager
  2. Check whether the issue is resolved
  3. If resolved, reactivate your other plugins one at a time
  4. The last plugin you activated before the issue returned is the conflicting one
  5. Contact support with that plugin’s name so the team can investigate a fix

Database Issues

“Table Doesn’t Exist” Error

Solutions:
1. Deactivate the plugin, then reactivate it — this triggers the database table creation routine
2. Confirm the WordPress database prefix in wp-config.php matches your actual tables
3. If the problem persists, contact your hosting provider to confirm your database user has CREATE TABLE permissions

Enabling Debug Mode

If you need to gather more information about an error, enable WordPress debug mode.

Add these lines to your wp-config.php file (above the line that says “That’s all”):

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

After reproducing the issue, check the log file at:

/wp-content/debug.log

Share the relevant entries from this file when contacting support.

Getting Help

If you have worked through this guide and the issue persists, gather the following information before reaching out:

  • WordPress version
  • WB Ad Manager version (visible in Plugins → Installed Plugins)
  • PHP version (visible in Tools → Site Health → Info → Server)
  • Your active theme name
  • List of active plugins
  • The exact error message or a description of what you see
  • Steps to reproduce the issue

Where to Get Support

Last updated: March 4, 2026