If you are managing a Wordpress site you might face a Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance error page that makes your site unable to serve content.

What might cause this error?

Every time we install a new plugin or theme or we upgrade one of the installed ones Wordpress puts our site in maintenance mode while the new code it’s being installed.

If we look at the update page we’ll see two messages telling us whe this happens: Enabling Maintenance mode... and Disabling Maintenance mode....

If somehow Wordpress fails in the middle our site will keep the maintenance mode. This might happen also if we refresh the page while Wordpress is doing their things.

How we can fix this situation?

In order to fix it we’ll need to access to the server files using a web UI in our hosting site or using a FTP connection. In the rood path where Wordpress is installed we’ll see a file named .maintenance. We need to get rid of this file.

Once done our site will become online again but we have to bear in mind that we might still have problems due to the fact that Wordpress couldn’t finish the installation of some themes or plugins.

Can we avoid this error?

We can do some things to avoid facing this problem:

  • Upgrade plugins and themes one by one.
  • Check that the wordpress version is compatible with the current installed version.
  • If it’s a paid plugin check that your tier is compatible with the new version.
  • Avoid closing tabs while Wordpress is upgrading stuff.