Site's entire backend disappears when I activate the plugin...

I understand that this is maybe the BEST way to find a plugin conflict, but it's not the only way, or the easiest way, or even practical for a live site.

With access to Apache or PHP error logs, you can determine what error is being thrown and then figure out whose fault it is (i.e. which plugin.) I cringe whenever I hear "deactivate all the plugins and revert to the stock theme." It's not practical for 99% of people out there working with live sites; small sites, or even larger sites, who don't have the benefit of a testing environment. I understand it's probably not the fault of Gravity Forms and that it is beyond the scope of support for your plugin, but it is impractical in a lot of cases to "deactivate all the plugins and activate them one by one" when you're working with a live site.

So, how about some other suggestions for troubleshooting that don't require completely taking a site offline? Logging the PHP errors, displaying errors to the screen, just google it, the Codex, etc.

I love Gravity Forms and understand this is the easiest way for you to track down conflicts with other plugins, but it's not practical for many people with live sites.

@TheUnlockr - it *is* a topic for another forum, for sure. Unfortunately, it's not even really a topic for the WordPress.org forums. The advice there is frequently to disable all plugins as well. While that normally works to isolate the problem, I still think it's impractical for many sites, and doesn't actually solve the problem with the plugin (it just tells you which plugin is causing a problem.)

Depending on the level of hosting you have, you may already have access to Apache or PHP error logs. The error code will be 500 and it will be logged somewhere. If you don't have access to those logs, then you need to set up PHP error logging. If you search for "PHP error logging .htaccess" you will find many ways to enable php error logging. Different methods work on different hosting environments.

Here's one:
http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/01/14/advanced-php-error-handling-via-htaccess/

If your host does not allow php ini directives in .htaccess (and adding them will result in a white screen as well!) then you can enable logging of errors on your own by including a logging script. Then check the errors out in your own log. A google search for "custom error logging php" brings this as the first result (and I use something similar to this, so it may work):

http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_error.asp

It is certainly more complicated than one plugin's support is responsible for, and possibly beyond the ability of many WordPress users, but I'm with you in that I cannot disable every plugin on my site to isolate a problem. That would probably be the last thing I do. For me, I would rather take more time to isolate the problem by examining the actual error (from the logs) than take the site down to determine the conflict. In your case, you were lucky that it is a plugin you can live without. But if it were not, you'd still need to find the logs and the error that this plugin was causing.