Troubleshooting

Common issues and how to resolve them. If your problem isn't here, grab the diagnostic ZIP (see the bottom of this page) and reach out.

A scan or bulk job never finishes

You click Scan Content, Check Links, or Apply and the progress banner sticks — it starts but never completes, or the button seems to do nothing.

• Most likely cause: your host blocks PHP's exec() / proc_open() via the disable_functions directive. Linkwise dispatches its background jobs with these functions; when they're blocked, the job can't actually start. Linkwise detects this and shows a banner in the Control Panel — if you see that banner, this is your issue.
• Fix: enable exec() and proc_open() (remove them from disable_functions in php.ini), or move to hosting that allows them. Most managed and VPS plans do; some budget shared plans don't. After enabling, retry the job.
• The diagnostic ZIP records this check, so it confirms the diagnosis quickly.

Linkwise isn't in the Control Panel

• Cause: the Manage Linkwise permission isn't granted to your role.
• Fix: Users → Roles → your role → enable Manage Linkwise. Super admins have it automatically. See Installation.

Suggestions or counts look out of date

After adding or heavily editing content, the Links Report or suggestion counts don't reflect the change.

• Cause: the index is stale. Linkwise updates the index when you save a single entry, but large or bulk changes (imports, many new entries) need a full rescan.
• Fix: Overview → Scan Content. The Overview tab flags when the index is getting stale.

A working link is reported as broken

• Cause: a transient network blip during the scan, or a server that rejects HEAD requests.
• Fix: re-run Check Links. Transient failures (timeouts, refused connections) are not cached — the next scan re-checks them. Servers that reject HEAD are automatically retried with GET, so false positives should be rare.

A link I want ignored still shows as broken

• Cause: ignored_links patterns match the full URL; a bare domain won't match a full URL.
• Fix: use a wildcard — *example.com* ignores every link to that domain. See Broken Links.

Drafts appear in reports (or published entries are missing)

• Cause: the entry_status setting. The default published excludes drafts; all includes them.
• Fix: adjust entry_status in your configuration and rescan.

An entry keeps getting suggested that I don't want linked

• Fix: add the entry to excluded_entries, the whole collection to excluded_collections, or blacklist its title via title_blacklist. For a single suggestion, use the ignore action in the suggestions modal.

A bulk operation says "modified by another editor" — but only I edited it

• Cause: right after a bulk operation, the page can still hold a stale content snapshot, so the next bulk sends an out-of-date hash.
• Fix: reload the page, then retry the operation.

Multilingual: a "re-run Scan Content" banner, or cross-language oddities

• Cause: the index was built before per-site locale tagging — e.g. before you enabled multisite or upgraded — so some entries have no locale stamp.
• Fix: run Scan Content once (the banner prompts exactly this). Afterwards, suggestions are correctly scoped per language.

Inserted links open (or don't open) in a new tab

• Fix: the open_in_new_tab option controls whether links Linkwise inserts carry target="_blank". See Configuration.

A first scan is slow on a very large site

This is expected on sites with thousands of entries or links. The scan runs in the background and is cancellable and resumable, and broken-link results are cached for 24 hours against each entry's content — so re-runs are fast. Let the first full scan finish.

Getting help

If none of the above resolves it, send us a diagnostic ZIP:

Overview → Help → Diagnostic ZIP.

It bundles the information we need to reproduce an issue fast — environment and hosting checks (including the exec() / proc_open() status above), index and configuration state, and recent operation metadata. Attach it when you open a GitHub issue or email linkwise.support@gmail.com — bug reports with the ZIP attached are resolved considerably faster.