• Working worldwide
  • 14 years of development experience
info@deviec.com
DEVIEC
Start your project

Service

Website broken, slow or compromised? Start with a diagnosis

Guessing at a broken site is expensive. We run a structured diagnostic first, tell you what is actually wrong and what it will take to fix, then repair it in priority order.

  • Fixed-price diagnostic before any repair work is quoted
  • Root causes identified, not just symptoms suppressed
  • Prioritised repair plan you can act on with anyone
  • Prevention put in place so it does not recur
Request technical helpAll services
A screen displaying an error message on a website that has stopped working

What happens when you take on a broken website?

First a diagnostic, charged as a fixed piece of work. We take a full backup, examine the code, hosting, database, error logs and recent changes, and identify the root cause rather than the symptom. You receive a written report listing what is wrong, how serious each item is, and what fixing each one involves. Then you decide what to repair — with us or with anyone else. The report is yours either way.

  • A backup is taken before anything is touched
  • The report names root causes and ranks them by severity
  • You are never obliged to have us do the repair work

What we fix

Situations we are called into

  • The site is down or showing a critical error

    A white screen, a fatal error, a database connection failure, or a site that loads for some visitors and not others.

  • It has been hacked or is serving malware

    Injected spam, redirects to another site, browser warnings, or the host has suspended the account.

  • It has become unusably slow

    Pages taking many seconds, an admin area that crawls, or a store that slows down under normal traffic.

  • Forms stopped arriving

    Often for weeks before anyone notices, and often caused by a mail configuration change rather than the form itself.

  • An update broke something

    A WordPress, plugin or PHP update applied without staging, and now a critical part of the site does not work.

  • Payments or checkout are failing

    Orders not completing, duplicate charges, or a gateway integration that stopped working after a provider change.

Method

How a rescue engagement runs

  1. 01

    Stabilise

    Full backup taken. If the site is down or actively serving malware, we get it to a safe state before investigating.

    You receive: A safe backup and a stabilised site

  2. 02

    Diagnose

    Code, hosting, database, logs, recent changes and dependencies examined systematically rather than by trial and error.

    You receive: Written diagnostic report

  3. 03

    Prioritise

    Findings ranked by severity and business impact, each with an estimate. Some items will be optional; we will say which.

    You receive: Prioritised repair plan and quote

  4. 04

    Repair

    Fixes applied on staging first where the site allows it, verified, then deployed.

    You receive: Working site and a record of changes

  5. 05

    Prevent

    The conditions that allowed the failure addressed: staging, backups, update process, monitoring, permissions.

    You receive: Preventive measures in place

  6. 06

    Hand back

    A written account of what was wrong, what was changed and what we recommend next.

    You receive: Closing report

After a compromise

Cleaning a hacked site is only half the job

Removing injected code restores the site. It does not close the door that was used, which is why so many cleaned sites are reinfected within weeks. The route in is usually an outdated plugin, a reused password, an over-privileged account or a shared hosting neighbour.

So a cleanup engagement includes finding the entry point where the evidence permits, rotating credentials, reviewing user accounts and permissions, patching what was exploitable, and putting monitoring in place. We will also be honest about what cannot be determined after the fact — logs are often already rotated by the time we are called.

  • Injected code removed and file integrity restored
  • Entry point identified where the available logs allow it
  • Credentials rotated and user accounts reviewed
  • Patching, hardening and monitoring put in place
A padlock symbol representing website security review after a compromise

Severity

How we rank what we find

The diagnostic report uses these categories, so you can make a spending decision rather than being handed an undifferentiated list.

Severity What it means Typical response
Critical The site is down, insecure, or losing orders and enquiries right now. Fix immediately, before anything else.
High Working but degraded: severe slowness, broken key journeys, or a known vulnerability. Fix in the current engagement.
Medium Real problems that are not yet costing you visibly: technical debt, poor practice, missing safeguards. Plan into the next phase.
Low Improvements worth making when something else is already being changed. Batch with future work.

Questions

Website rescue questions

Why do you charge for a diagnostic?
Because it is the work. Finding out why a site is failing takes the same skill and time whether or not you then hire us to fix it. Charging for it also means we are not incentivised to recommend the most expensive repair — our diagnostic is paid for regardless of what you decide to do next.
Can you fix a site that another developer built?
Yes, and that is most of this work. We do not need the original developer's cooperation, though we will need hosting and site access. Where we find work that was done badly, we will describe it factually rather than editorially.
How quickly can you look at an urgent problem?
That depends on current commitments, and we will tell you honestly when we can start rather than promising a response time we cannot consistently meet. If we cannot get to it fast enough for your situation, we will say so immediately so you can look elsewhere.
Will you tell us if the site should be rebuilt instead?
Yes. Sometimes the honest finding is that the site is beyond economic repair and continuing to patch it is money spent twice. The diagnostic report will say so, with the reasoning, and you can weigh repair against rebuild with real numbers.
What access do you need?
Administrator access to the site, hosting control panel or server access, and access to the domain's DNS if the problem involves mail or certificates. We will ask for the minimum required and tell you which credentials to rotate once the work is complete.

Related services

Often paired with this

Website down, slow or compromised?

Tell us what is happening, what changed recently and what platform it runs on. We will tell you what a diagnostic would involve.

Request technical helpSee all services