Overview
Some WordPress sites experience a navigation menu that becomes fully expanded or visually broken immediately after activating the Search Atlas (SA) plugin. Deactivating the plugin restores the menu, which confirms the plugin is involved. This appears to be a plugin-related conflict, though the exact underlying cause may vary by site configuration.
This article explains how to immediately restore your site, steps you can try to resolve the conflict yourself, and how to escalate if self-serve steps do not fully resolve the issue.
Is This Your Issue?
You are likely experiencing this issue if all of the following are true:
- You recently installed or activated the Search Atlas WordPress plugin on a site.
- The site's navigation menu is unexpectedly expanded, distorted, or broken in appearance.
- Deactivating the SA plugin immediately restores the navigation menu to normal.
- Reactivating the plugin causes the problem to return.
Self-Serve Steps to Restore Your Site and Resolve the Conflict
Follow these steps in order. Many users are able to reduce or resolve the conflict without needing to keep the plugin deactivated.
- Deactivate the Search Atlas plugin from your WordPress admin panel by going to Plugins → Installed Plugins, locating Search Atlas, and clicking Deactivate. This immediately restores your navigation menu and keeps your site functional for visitors while you troubleshoot.
- Confirm the fix by visiting your site's front end and verifying the navigation menu appears correctly after deactivation. If it does, the SA plugin is confirmed as contributing to the issue.
- Check for plugin conflicts by temporarily deactivating all other plugins except Search Atlas, then reactivating them one at a time. If the menu breaks again when a specific plugin is reactivated alongside Search Atlas, that combination is likely the source of the conflict. Note which plugins are active when the problem occurs and include this information if you need to contact support.
- Switch to a default WordPress theme temporarily (such as Twenty Twenty-Three) to determine whether your active theme is contributing to the conflict. If the menu displays correctly with Search Atlas active and a default theme in use, the conflict may be theme-specific. Contact your theme developer with these findings.
- Document what you observe — including your theme name, active plugins, and WordPress version — so you can provide full context if you need to escalate.
When to Contact Support
If you have worked through the steps above and the navigation menu remains broken whenever the Search Atlas plugin is active, please reach out to the Search Atlas support team. Share the details you gathered — your theme, active plugins, and WordPress version — so the team can investigate and escalate to engineering if needed. To get help, use the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.