Are you seeing the ‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance’ error in WordPress? This error usually appears while updating WordPress core, plugins, or themes.
Basically, your WordPress site fails to finish the update which leaves you stuck in the maintenance mode.
In this article, we will show you how to easily fix the “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance” error in WordPress. We will also show you why this error occurs and how you can avoid it in the future.
Why Does The WordPress Maintenance Mode Error Occur?
Maintenance mode page is technically not an error. It is a notification page.
During the update process, WordPress downloads necessary update files to your server, extract them and then install the update.
WordPress also puts your site on maintenance mode and displays the “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.” notice during the process.
To trigger the maintenance mode notification, WordPress creates a temporary .maintenance file in your website’s root folder.
If everything works normally, then this notice will probably be displayed for only a few seconds. After the successful update, WordPress will automatically delete the maintenance file to disable maintenance mode.
However, sometimes due to a slow WordPress hosting server response or low memory issue, the update script will timeout thus interrupting the process. When this happens, WordPress does not get a chance to take your site out of maintenance mode.
In other words, your site will continue showing the maintenance mode notice, and you will need to manually fix it.
How to Fix WordPress Maintenance Mode Error?
To get your website out of maintenance mode, all you really need to do is delete the .maintenance file from your site’s root folder using FTP.
If you can’t find the .maintenance file in your WordPress root directory, then make sure you checked your FTP client to show hidden files.
In Filezilla, you can force it to show hidden files by clicking on Server » Force showing hidden files from the menu bar.
Once the .maintenance file is removed, your site will come out of maintenance mode, and the error should be fixed.
If you don’t know how to use FTP, then you can also remove the files by going to the file manager in your WordPress hosting control panel, and then deleting the .maintenance file inside the file manager.
How to Avoid WordPress Maintenance Mode in the Future?
We already know that the “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance” error is caused by slow server response or low memory issue on your web hosting server.
The easiest way to avoid this error is by upgrading to a higher hosting plan. We recommend going with one of these managed WordPress hosting companies that offer superior hosting performance.
If upgrading to a higher hosting plan is not an option, then we recommend doing plugin and theme updates one at a time.
Often users have a tendency of quickly clicking on the update link underneath each plugin. WordPress then staggers the update order, but even a millisecond of delay in connection could cause a conflict leading your site to be stuck in maintenance mode.
Instead of quickly clicking on the Update link, we recommend patiently updating one plugin at a time.
How to Customize Maintenance Mode Notification
An easier solution to avoid showing the default maintenance mode notification is by manually putting your WordPress site on maintenance mode before installing any updates.
The best way to do this is by installing and activating the SeedProd plugin. It is the most popular maintenance mode plugin for WordPress. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to Settings » Coming Soon Pro page and check the box next to ‘Enable maintenance mode’ option.
After that, you need to click on ‘Edit Coming Soon/Maintenance Page’ button. This will open the SeedProd theme customizer. From here you can choose a theme and then customize it to create a beautiful maintenance mode page for your website.
Now, if you don’t want to manually put your website in maintenance mode every time you update, then you can create a maintenance page in WordPress without using a plugin.
Simply create a new file called maintenance.php on your desktop and paste this code inside it:
<?php
$protocol = $_SERVER["SERVER_PROTOCOL"];
if ( 'HTTP/1.1' != $protocol && 'HTTP/1.0' != $protocol )
$protocol = 'HTTP/1.0';
header( "$protocol 503 Service Unavailable", true, 503 );
header( 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8' );
?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<body>
<h1>We are updating the site, please check back in 30 minutes.</h1>
</body>
</html>
<?php die(); ?>
Next, you need to upload this file to your WordPress site’s wp-content directory.
Now whenever you are updating your website, WordPress will show this page during the maintenance mode. You can use CSS to style this page anyway you want.
Troubleshooting WordPress Maintenance Mode Error
Since we have helped thousands of users fix the “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance” error in WordPress, we have helped users solve several unseen issues that can come up.
Below are some additional steps you might have to take if the above solution does not work.
WordPress still stuck in maintenance mode after the update and fix above?
If this is the case, then you need to update the wp-activate.php file located in your main WordPress folder. This is the same place where you found and deleted the .maintenance file.
You will need to either open the file using your hosting company’s file manager or download it on your computer using FTP.
Next, you need to find the code: define ('WP_INSTALLING', true) and change the true to false.
So your code will look like this:
define ('WP_INSTALLING', false)
After that you need to save the changes and upload the file to your hosting server using FTP. If you’re using the hosting company’s file manager, then simply saving the file should get you out of maintenance mode.
My site is broken after I fixed the WordPress maintenance mode error. How do I fix it?
An unfinished or interrupted update may cause issues when your site comes out of maintenance mode.
If this error occurred when you were updating WordPress core software, then you will need to follow our guide to manually update WordPress using FTP.
If the error occurred when you were updating a WordPress plugin, then you will need to temporarily deactivate all WordPress plugins using FTP. This step will ensure that the corrupt plugin is disabled, and your website will come back.
Next, you will need to login to your WordPress dashboard and activate one plugin at a time, to see which plugin caused the issue. After that you need to manually install the plugin update, so it’s working properly.
We hope this article helped you fix ‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance’ error in WordPress. You may also want to bookmark our ultimate guide on fixing the most common WordPress errors.
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Great It worked , Thanks
Glad our guide was helpful
Please could you help me: My wordpress site says ” I have a critical error”.
That would be a different error, you would want to take a look at our guide below for our recommendations:
/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death/
thanks you. i get my solution
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Thank you very much, this helped me alot
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You saved me – Thanks
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Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge!!
You’re welcome, glad our content is helpful
Hello,
First of all, thanks for saving my site. I had the same problem with my localhost website and was so tensed because I was about to make it live today. This problem occurred when I tried updating ewww image optimizer. I don’t know how to say thanks to you.
Thanks for the information.
Glad you found our guide helpful
Thank you for this post. I owe you a beer!
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truly great content , Thanks for the help
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it was helpful for me to solve this problem.Tnx a lot
Glad our guide was helpful
Thank you so much. This helped and fixed my issue
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thank you very much. working
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Thanks so much the issue has been fixed
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Thanks for your help!
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This article done the trick for me, simply deleted the file from the directory. Useful post guys, thanks a lot.
James
You’re welcome, glad our guide could help
Awesome, its really easy I was worried, but this articles helped me to get rid of all my worries. Thank you very much
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articles that really helped solve my problem
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Thanks for the information.
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Worked like magic. Thanks for the “straight to the point” approach to providing solutions
You’re welcome, glad our article could be helpful
This is all great but I can’t login to the site anymore. How do I fix anything if I can’t login? Help???!!!
This article recommends FTP which we cover here: /beginners-guide/how-to-use-ftp-to-upload-files-to-wordpress-for-beginners/
If you are uncomfortable with FTP, if you reach out to your hosting provider they should be able to assist
hi there,
i had the message saying briefly unavailable for schedule maintenance. check in a minute.
I went on site and it just show blank screen, what does this mean?
thanks.
There are a few possible reasons for the white screen, you would want to take a look at our article here: /wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death/
Thanks it worked.
You’re welcome
Thanks!!! It really worked!
You’re welcome, glad our recommendation worked
Hi. Thanks a lot for this tutorial. You saved me from reseting my hosting account in order to restart my web design.
God bless.
Glad our tutorial could help
yay, my website live again after deleting maintenance files in cpanel, i’am wait for some minutes and keep maintenance, thanks for info
Glad our guide could help
Man thank you for that advice. :D!
You’re welcome
Thank you, thank you. I was worried there but your advice and your commenters really helped
Glad our post could help
Thanks for sharing
Thank you. I found it. I have one question. Why we cannot update plugin? While I was updating I face that error.
I didn’t find .maintenance file …even in hidden mode also
yup, just wait around 5 minute more or less, than ur website will appear
Concise, accurate, and helpful. Thanks!
i cant explain how thankful I am after reading this post
i found that when host can not connect to update wordpress this problem occur
thank you
but how we can prevent WP to disable plugins??
in this problem my site was reachable but all plugins not work and sitemap was error in google
Thanks a lot !!! It helped me to solve my problem in 2 seconds!!!
Hey daniel,
Glad you found it helpful
Don’t forget to join us on Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
Thanks! This was such an easy fix instead of calling into GoDaddy to try to troubleshoot!
It will be nice if WordPress will provide a script to delete .maintenance file via direct link, because if you don’t have accesto FTP your dead!
am in this trouble thank for sharing you just saved me because was thinking my site got hacked
Thanks. That worked great.
This is a great article. saved me hours of research and frustration.
Thanks for WPBeginners Editorial Team
Glad you found it helpful. Make sure you follow us Facebook.
Thanks for the trick. I learned one more thing.
Thanks. Site back up and running. It got stuck in maintenance. Removed file from FTP and all back as it should be.
Thank’s, second method helped me. I am happy!
Solved, So thanks
Frank any thoughts on my response on Jan 15th. Andy
I can access wp-admin but when I select ‘Please update now’ at top of dashboard (WordPress 4.4.1 is available) I get the following message
‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.’. I have read through forum and everything seems to suggest deleting the hidden .maintenance file but this file does not exist. Any further ideas?
Andy
It is hidden file, please make sure your FTP client is set to show hidden files.
could not find .maintenance. Too many files. Why is it so hard to give a step by step instruction ?
Frank I have ensured hidden files are accesible and tried it with boat Filezilla and cPanel and there is no .maintenance file.
One thing that is different to other similar querys is that I seem to be able to access all features of my wp-admin..can post, update page, update plugins etc. only thing I seem to get message is when I try to update wordpress 4.4.1. Any significance? Andy
Thanks…… I am very Happy that you give me a Solution … Thanks again
Thanks for saving my blog today.it went down for more than 10 minutes.
I think that i should move to a vps hosting.
Thanks so much for this, you’ve really helped me how to get the site back out of maintenance mode.