To enable debug logging, navigate to Elevated › Instagram Feed › Settings, scroll down to the Developer Settings section, and toggle Enable Debug Logging to ON. This logs backend plugin operations and Instagram API requests to your system’s standard error log, allowing you to troubleshoot account linking or visual rendering issues.

Table of Contents

• Enable Debug Mode
• How to Access and Locate the Debug Log File
• What Information is Captured in Debug Mode?
• Recommended Plugin for Dashboard Debug Logging
• Troubleshooting Common Logging Issues

Enable Debug Mode in Elevated Instagram Feed

To start recording plugin diagnostic data:

1. Navigate to Elevated › Instagram Feed in your WordPress administration sidebar.
2. Click the Settings tab located at the top of the interface.
3. Scroll down the settings page to find the Developer Settings section.
4. Toggle the Enable Debug Logging switch to ON (blue).
5. Click the blue Save Settings button in the bottom-right corner to save your changes.

Once saved, the plugin begins logging background tasks and API interactions. To populate the log, visit the public-facing pages where your feed is currently placed to trigger active caching and rendering events.

How to Access and Locate the Debug Log File

By default, the recorded events are sent directly to your standard WordPress system log. To retrieve this file:

1. Connect to your web server using an FTP client, sFTP, or your hosting control panel’s file manager.
2. Navigate to your site’s root directory and locate the wp-content/ folder.
3. Open wp-content/ and look for the file named debug.log.
4. Open this file in a text editor to inspect recorded entries.

All logged actions generated by this plugin will display with a timestamp and the plugin folder prefix so you can isolate them from other system logs.

What Information is Captured in Debug Mode?

Enabling debug logging is useful when your feed behaves unexpectedly during setup or fails to fetch fresh media. The log captures granular data points from background activity, including:

• API Authentication Status: Records security handshakes with Meta’s Graph API, tracking token validation errors or permission checks.
• Cron Sync Logs: Displays background tasks managed by your server’s WP-Cron scheduler, confirming if automated content checks are executing on schedule.
• Media Cache Actions: Tracks when local files are downloaded, indexed, compressed, or cleared.
• Layout and Script Errors: Logs critical file errors, such as folder write-permission blocks in your upload folders.

Recommended Plugin for WordPress Debug Logging

Accessing, downloading, and inspecting log files via FTP or server file managers can be time-consuming. If you prefer to monitor your error logs directly within your WordPress admin area, we recommend using a dedicated debugging plugin like WP Debug Toolkit.

WP Debug Toolkit displays WordPress and PHP logs directly inside your admin panel. Rather than forcing you to scroll through raw text files, it features real-time logging, error highlighting, and search filters to help you isolate specific plugin actions.

Crucially, it also installs a standalone viewer application that remains password-protected and accessible even if a critical database crash locks you out of your WordPress dashboard.

Troubleshooting Common Logging Issues

No entries are appearing in the debug.log file

If the debug.log file is missing or remains completely empty after you have enabled logging, your global WordPress debugging constants are likely turned off. Open your site’s central wp-config.php file using FTP and verify that the following lines are set to true:

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

These configuration rules tell WordPress to capture system logs and write them to the debug.log file without displaying raw PHP errors publicly on your active website pages.

The log file size is growing too large

If you leave debug logging enabled for a long period of time, the file will consume server disk space. Once you have successfully resolved your API connection or caching issues, return to Elevated › Instagram Feed › Settings, toggle Enable Debug Logging to OFF, and click Save Settings to close active diagnostic logging.

Related Documentation – Enable Debug Mode

• How to Clear Cache and Refresh Instagram Feeds 
  How to clear the local image cache to force visual updates on your live pages.
• How to Embed an Instagram Feed on WordPress  
  Complete guide to placing feed shortcodes inside pages, posts, and widget blocks.