Troubleshoot Provider Connections

Failure categories

Provider failures usually come from one of four places: invalid credentials, provider account or billing limits, unsupported model access, or hosting-level connectivity issues. Do not rotate keys repeatedly until diagnostics show which category is likely.

Evidence to capture

Record the provider name, timestamp, exact error, PHP version, extension status, outbound HTTPS result, and whether the provider account works outside WordPress. The provider troubleshooting tutorial shows the practical evidence-gathering workflow.

Escalation

Escalate to the host when extensions, DNS, SSL, or outbound connections fail. Escalate to the provider when billing, account limits, key restrictions, or model availability are the likely issue. Use diagnostics and support to keep the report safe.

Owner and cadence

• Primary owner: support lead or site administrator responsible for triage and evidence handling.
• Review cadence: when an issue is reported, before support contact, and after recovery to improve the runbook.
• Escalate when evidence is incomplete, private data may be exposed, production impact continues, or routing between host, provider, and plugin support is unclear.

Production checklist

• Check key validity, provider billing, model access, PHP extensions, outbound HTTPS, DNS, SSL, firewall, and host restrictions.
• Test whether the provider account works outside WordPress before rotating keys repeatedly.
• Capture exact timestamp, affected user, affected screen, SophMate version, WordPress version, PHP version, and reproduction steps.
• Redact provider keys, credentials, payment data, private customer details, and raw logs before support handoff.

Acceptance checks

• The failure is narrowed to credentials, provider account, model access, or hosting connectivity.
• The next escalation includes exact error text, timestamp, provider, and diagnostics evidence.
• The support report lets another operator reproduce or triage the issue without receiving secrets.
• The team knows whether to escalate to hosting, provider support, CodeCanyon support, or internal operations.

Common mistakes

• Retrying or changing settings repeatedly before preserving the exact error report, timestamp, and affected screen.
• Opening support requests with raw logs or vague descriptions instead of redacted diagnostics and reproduction steps.

Related operations

• Use the provider troubleshooting tutorial.
• Review Connect an AI Provider.
• Use Incident Response Runbook when production behavior is affected.
• Use Contacting Support before opening a support request.
• Use Support SLA and Escalation Matrix before customer-visible support routing.
• Use Error Reports and Support Codes before redacting or sharing an error report.
• Use Migration and Reindex Review before restarting workflows after updates.
• Use Post-Incident Review and Prevention before returning paused work to normal scope.
• Use Changelog and Release Note Review before release decisions.