Final Destination: Website Edition

You know that scene in Final Destination 2 with the logging truck? That’s exactly how it feels watching someone click “enable auto updates” on a WordPress site with no backup, no plan, and no dev on deck.

Automation is great—until it’s not. And when things go sideways, you don’t want to be alone in the right lane, heading straight for disaster. Here’s how our team prevented a few near-misses by doing what automation can’t: noticing patterns, thinking critically, and troubleshooting like humans who’ve seen things.

Jetpack Contact Form Bug

Problem: After a recent update, strange errors appeared in the WordPress editor across multiple sites.

Solution: Our team tracked the issue to a known Jetpack bug tied to contact forms. By digging into GitHub and community forums, we confirmed the cause and fixed it by disabling the Jetpack Contact Form module.

Why a Human Was Needed: Automation flagged the error, but only a person could interpret the context, cross-reference issues across multiple environments, and recognize the Jetpack module as the root cause.

Why It Mattered: Left unresolved, this glitch would have blocked content edits across client sites, delaying time-sensitive updates and making the website feel broken to staff trying to do their jobs.

Website Hijacked via Fake Plugin

Problem: A client’s site was redirecting visitors to an unrelated domain. Google flagged the site, and a new (unauthorized) domain owner had been verified.

Solution: We discovered a fake plugin containing malicious code and backdoor scripts. We removed them, locked down the admin account, implemented real-time scanning, and resecured domain access.

Why a Human Was Needed: AI tools and security plugins can detect suspicious behavior, but only a person could piece together the various symptoms and respond strategically to eliminate the full scope of the threat.

Why It Mattered: Redirects and ownership flags severely damaged the client’s credibility. Google penalties could have tanked their SEO, and potential customers likely saw the site as hacked (or worse) untrustworthy.

Plugin Update Crashes Site Post-Migration

Problem: A plugin update caused a fatal error after a hosting migration, taking the site offline.

Solution: We restored the site from backup and traced the issue to a geolocation plugin that required SSH access, unavailable on the new server. We swapped it out for a compatible tool.

Why a Human Was Needed: Automation couldn’t predict the plugin’s dependency on SSH. Our team recognized the server mismatch, diagnosed the root cause, and implemented a functional alternative.

Why It Mattered: Downtime hurts. For businesses relying on online visibility and transactions, even a few hours offline can cost real revenue and shake customer confidence.

Posts Refusing to Disappear

Problem: A client tried to hide a category of posts on their articles page. Despite the setting being correct, the posts still showed up.

Solution: We traced the issue to an outdated theme-bound grid module that bypassed WPBakery filters. Since the theme/plugin hadn’t been updated since 2019, we replaced the grid functionality with a modern plugin that respected taxonomy filters.

Why a Human Was Needed: This problem wasn’t documented. It required someone who could trace plugin behavior through outdated architecture and infer the cause from experience, not a checklist.

Why It Mattered: Content control is critical for brand reputation. The client wanted to remove outdated or irrelevant articles. When their site didn’t reflect that, it made them look disorganized and not in control of their message.

Test Payments Rejected at Checkout

Problem: A client couldn’t enable test mode in their e-commerce system. Checkout was breaking with an error tied to WooCommerce payments.

Solution: We traced it to a JavaScript conflict between the UPS Print Label plugin and the WooCommerce checkout blocks. We advised switching plugins or reverting to the default checkout layout.

Why a Human Was Needed: The error didn’t say what the problem was. Only by understanding how checkout blocks and plugin scripts interact could we locate the clash and explain the path forward.

Why It Mattered: A broken checkout = lost sales. In this case, it meant customers could not complete a transaction. That’s the kind of silent failure that erodes trust and costs revenue.

The Limits of AI and Automation

Yes, there are AI-powered services that can troubleshoot issues and auto-fix common issues on your website. They can be useful for surface-level problems and known error patterns, especially when paired with auto-update systems and security scans.

But here’s the reality: even those services can’t handle everything. When something gets too weird or too specific (like everything we listed above), they hand the problem off to their human support teams.

Why? Because AI can only make decisions based on the data it’s been fed…by humans. When the data is messy, incomplete, biased, or just too niche, AI tools fail. They can’t reason through edge cases, interpret intent, or make ethical calls about what to fix and how.

AI simplifies repetitive tasks and recognizes patterns (e.g. LLMs), but it does not process nuance. It won’t know when a contact form issue is a known Jetpack bug buried in a 2018 GitHub thread. It can’t connect the dots between a malicious redirect and an unauthorized domain verification. It doesn’t think abstractly. And it definitely doesn’t know what your brand reputation is worth.

For that, you still need people. Human oversight. Real-world experience.

When things go wrong (and they will) you want someone who doesn’t just recognize the pattern, but knows how to handle it.

The Bottom Line

Website problems aren’t always dramatic. Most of the time, they’re weird, quiet, and easy to ignore until something breaks publicly, or a customer bounces, or your team can’t update your own site.

When you’ve got humans keeping an eye on things, those problems don’t become disasters. Most of the time they go unnoticed, because they’re being taken care of behind the scenes.

So the next time you’re tempted to opt in to automated updates, just remember that logging truck scene in Final Destination 2.

Everyone in the left lane has either seen the movie… or they’ve got humans like us.