Monitoring Plugins, Backups, and Site Health

Overview

Once a site is paired, the StretchWP dashboard plugin reports its plugin inventory, backup history, and health back to your workspace. The Plugins, Backups, and Health tabs turn that telemetry into a plain-English status you can act on — no server access needed.

Track plugins and updates

1. Open the site and select the Plugins tab.
2. Review the table: each row shows the plugin Name, installed Version, Status (active/inactive), and whether an Update is available.
3. Cross-check the Overview tab — the Plugin updates tile counts how many plugins have updates waiting and highlights when the count is above zero.

StretchWP-managed plugins are updated through signed packages delivered by the platform, so managed updates are verified before they're applied. If you see an update pending on a managed plugin for an extended time, flag it to the Stretch team. See Managed plugin updates and the StretchWP plugin suite for how signed updates work.

Review backups

1. Open the Backups tab.
2. Each entry lists the backup label/type, its status, when it was created, and its size.
3. Use the Overview tab's Last backup tile for the most recent snapshot time at a glance.

Tip: A healthy managed site shows a recent, successful backup on the Overview tile. If Last backup reads a dash or a stale date after the site has been live for a while, raise it with the Stretch team. Restores are performed by the Stretch team — see Backups and restore.

Read site health

1. Open the Health tab.
2. Review the current probe:
- Current status — overall health pill.
- HTTP status — the response code from the last check (200 is healthy).
- Response time — round-trip time in milliseconds.
- TLS / HTTPS — whether the certificate validated.
- Checked — when the probe last ran.
3. If a Refresh button is shown, use it to run a fresh probe on demand.

StretchWP probes your site's public hostname directly from the platform, so the Health reading reflects what a real visitor experiences — reachability, speed, and a valid certificate — not just an internal signal.

Example

A visitor reports the site feels slow. You open Health, see HTTP status 200, Response time 1,850 ms, and TLS valid. The site is up but responding slowly, so you check Plugins and notice a recently updated plugin — useful context to include when you contact support. You also glance at Backups and confirm last night's snapshot completed, so you know you have a clean restore point if you need one.

Tips

• Empty states populate automatically. "No health probe yet" or "No plugin inventory yet" means the site hasn't reported that data yet, not that something is broken. Give a newly paired site a few minutes and refresh.
• Use Health before you blame the site. A 200 with a high response time points to performance (see Site performance and optimization); a non-200 or TLS error is a reachability or certificate issue worth escalating.
• Watch the Plugin updates tile. It's the quickest signal that something needs attention on the Plugins tab.

Troubleshooting

• Health shows a non-200 HTTP status or TLS error. Note the exact status code and response time from the Health tab and contact the Stretch team with those details.
• A plugin update is stuck as pending. Confirm it on the Plugins tab, then flag the plugin name and site to support; managed updates are delivered as signed packages by the platform.
• Backups look stale. Managed snapshots run on a schedule. If Last backup is a dash or an old date on a live site, raise it with the Stretch team — don't assume the schedule stopped without checking Events first.