How to activate/deactivate your theme or plugins via cpanel?

Introduction

If you are web/WordPress developer, you need to know how to activate/deactivate your theme or plugins via cpanel.

When you face a critical error on your WordPress website, the main task is to identify who is the culprit. It could be the theme, plugin or even WordPress. The main reason for critical error is version incompatibility. So it is highly important to disable all the plugins and themes and check with the default WP theme. Whenever critical errors start showing up, your access to the WordPress admin panel is restricted/blocked. Hence the only option is to activate/deactivate all themes and plugins via cPanel or the hosting server. Now this is a bit confusing for many. 

Here we have described how to activate/deactivate your themes or plugins from the hosting server or cpanel of two different hosting providers. One is GoDaddy and the other is Hostinger. Though it is almost the same, the path to get to the required place is a bit different for some providers. 

Note: Be extra cautious when you attempt to do this 

GoDaddy

Login to your GoDaddy account. Select ‘Hosting’. You will see the list of websites hosted on the Godaddy server. Select ‘Web Hosting’ option for the preferred domain name. The GoDaddy web hosting dashboard will be open. On the top right, you will find the cPanel Admin button. Click on it. The cPanel with a lot of server options will come up. Select the required website name if more websites are hosted on the server under the ‘Web Applications’ – ‘My Applications’. 

The Installatron page will be opened with the details of all the websites hosted. Look for the website with the issue and opt for the tool to view/edit details. Then select the ‘Files & Tables’ tab from among the three visible tabs. You see the list of all the WP files here and you can enable and disable them here. Look for the WP-content file name. Click on it to view the files and folders that come under this. Here you will see the themes and plugins folder and you can easily enable or disable the plugins. 

Hostinger

Login to hostinger. After you have logged in with your Two-factor authentication, navigate to the Hosting menu. From there opt for Business Web Hosting. If there is more than one website hosted on the server, you will see the number of websites. Now on mouse-over on the number of websites, you will see the list of websites hosted. Select the required one. The hosting page of that website will appear. From the left-hand side menu, under ‘WordPress’ select ‘Security’.

Here you will see the WordPress version, and all the installed themes and plugins too. The page will display the theme/plugin name along with its version and the security status along with the Hostinger recommendation. Towards the right side of each listing, you will find three dots which when clicked will show options to either update or delete the respective theme or plugin. If an update is available, you can edit the theme or plugin from here. If there is any security issue, the recommendation option will clearly show the issue and what has to be done. 

You also have the option to disable the theme or plugins from here. When you are facing a critical error issue, you need to disable all the plugins first. Now check the site if a critical error still shows, if it shows, then you need to disable all the themes and switch to the default theme. If your website can be viewed, then you can be sure that the issue is with one of your plugins. 

Next is to start enabling the plugins one by one to identify the culprit. Once you identify the culprit plugin, ensure that you either remove it or find out what the issue is with that particular plugin. 

That was on how you could activate/deactivate your themes or plugins via cPanel or your web hosting server when your WP admin panel is not accessible.