Why is troubleshooting so complex?

We support as wide of a variety of blog configurations as possible, but there is a limit to what’s reasonable to expect from support, which we restrict to specifically theme issues. This can be difficult to identify for anyone non-technical, and even sometimes technical people with experience in different ecosystems.

Only Genesis developers are really qualified to identify what is and is not a child theme issue. This is because:

1. Child themes are developed to provide aesthetic blog changes, and use customizations and features implemented by the Genesis framework, which is installed on approximately 500,000 blogs worldwide
2. The Genesis framework removes, adds to, and modifies the WordPress core to provide best-practices out of the box
3. The WordPress core fundamentally changes how PHP operates, re-ordering and re-structuring code flow
4. PHP relies on different server environments and settings, which can be ill-set up by cheap bottom-barrel webhosts (anything under $20 USD/month), or locked-down and well managed by more premium hosts (generally $30+ USD/month)

To compound this complexity even further:

1. Plugins can add, remove or change how the child theme operates in unpredictable ways
2. There are various HTML elements that can be used to achieve the same result, depending on developer preference
3. CSS controls how the outputted HTML is visually styled, and can add elements, hide elements, re-order certain elements, and sometimes make things behave how they weren’t intended to
4. Javascript can further add, remove or modify elements and styling
5. Caching can occur at the server level, DNS level or browser level and can make changes either “not appear” in real time, or suddenly appear hours or days later, making the true cause of the change difficult to identify

This is why generic hosting companies (especially the cheap ones) aren’t qualified to troubleshoot and identify issues with our themes. Even technically knowledgeable people in non-Genesis ecosystems can have difficulty nailing down specific issues and causes. Further, even between Genesis developers, there’s some disagreement about how certain things should be handled and certain methodologies.

This is why themes often get blamed for issues that are not actually theme issues and why we require customers to submit issues through the support ticket page.

WordPress offers perhaps too much customization ability for the average blogger, allowing them install conflicting and unnecessary plugins without proper guidance on where to stop.

This is where webmasters come in – people who specializing in managing and maintaining blogs. For a fee, webmasters will keep your site running well and provide guidance on how to structure the website and plugins, based on their years of experience and what’s worked well with similar blogs.

Like all things in life, there are varying levels of webmasters and support – good webmasters knowledgeable in food blogs charge in excess of $1000 per month.

There’s a simple solution to all this: if you run a food blog, stop fiddling unnecessarily with technical and stylistic changes, which is not going to earn you more revenue. Our default configurations get you 99% of the way there, and are based on thousands of hours of testing and modifying to set you up with best practices.

Spend your time cooking, taking pictures and creating beautiful food recipes – that’s what earns you income.