WordPress might be one of the world’s leading content management systems, but that does not make it immune to the odd glitch or bug.
If you visit your site and see the message ‘briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance’, your site is updating itself. (here is the core function from the WordPress Codex).
These updates could be WordPress core, your themes or plugins.
This is a normal process that usually takes less than a minute to correct.
What happens when maintenance mode gets stuck?
If your site gets stuck in maintenance mode, it usually means that the update process got interpreted and was unable to complete, leaving your site showing the maintenance mode screen.
Maintenance updates can get stuck due to the following:
- Slow server speed
- Many updates running at the same time
- Compatibility issues
- Theme issues
- Expirered plugin or theme licences
What do you do if your site gets stuck in maintenance mode?
- Connect to your site via FTP (or SFTP if your server requires it).
- Got to the folder on your server where WordPress is installed.
- Locate and delete the .maintenance file. Note that this is a hidden file; you may have to go to View in your FTP client and enable ‘show hidden files.
- Clear your site cache.
- The issue is fixed!
These simple steps will fix the issue, and your site will work again.
What if you can’t get FTP access?
Most hosting companies have a ‘file manager’ in your hosting control panel.
This shows all the files on your server, and you can use it to perform the same process above, using the file manager to delete the offending .maintenance file.
Charlotte Brown
Head of Digital
If your site is having problems with maintenance mode, we can help.
Fixing this is not overly technical, but we appreciate that deleting files from your website can be a daunting task. If you would rather we did it fo you, get in touch.
Get A Better WebsiteWhat should fixing maintenance mode cost?
It’s a quick fix, so don’t expect to pay for more than 15 minutes of anyone’s time to resolve this issue, especially if you are working with your existing developer.
If we were to fix this, our charges would be £15 + VAT to get your site back up and running.
How long should it take to fix it?
As it’s a case of logging into your site via FTP or your hosting control panel, the process is as follows:
- Request login details: 2 minutes
- Log into FTP or control panel: 2 minutes
- Locate the correct files: 1 minute
- Visit the front end of the website and check pages are working: 1 minute
- Log into the backend and check what may have caused the issue: 5 minutes
- Update everything via the WP Admin: 3 minutes
- Check everything is working: 1 minute
Total work time for this fix: 15 minutes (assuming there is no back-and-forth on the communication and you don’t want to have a meeting about it.
How long should you wait for a fix?
As this is a short task, one of our team members should be able to fix this same day for you.
As your site is effectively down whilst in maintenance mode, we will make this a priority for you.
What can complicate this issue?
Lack of logins is the most common cause of delays in fixing broken maintenance mode, but other factors like the quality of your WordPress theme, the number of plugins on your site, and any bespoke development work can also be potential causes of complication.
About this article.
We always try and publish useful and helpful content on our website. ‘Understanding and resolving WordPress’s ‘Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance’ issue’ has been written by David Foreman and researched (links below).
Our experience
We’ve fixed 1000s of WordPress problems over the last 15 years, and ‘website stuck in maintenance mode’ is a common issue.
Luckily, it’s an easy fix, so if you come across this issue, you can quickly fix it yourself, or if you pay a developer to do this for you, it should take less than 15 minutes.
Our expertise
Solving this problem only requires FTP or control panel access, which is why it only takes a short while to get it sorted.
This problem is simple. The error message on the screen tells you what the problem is so you know exactly how to fix it.
Why you can trust us
As we provide support for 100s of WordPress sites, we’ve come across no end to what we consider unethical behaviour from so-called WordPress experts.
Fixing the ‘stuck in maintenance mode’ WordPress issue should take your WordPress developer no more than 15 minutes to fix, so if you ask us to do it the charge would be £15 + VAT.
David Foreman
Dave is the MD at Toast and has been building bespoke WordPress sites for over 15 years. He currently gets involved in the scoping and planning of new sites together with content and SEO strategy to get sites ranking.
