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How to Fix Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance Error in WordPress

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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 and stays stuck in 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.

Fix Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance Error in WordPress

Why Does the WordPress Maintenance Mode Error Occur?

The WordPress 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, extracts them, and then installs the update.

WordPress also puts your site into maintenance mode and displays the ‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute’ notice during the process.

Unavailable for scheduled maintenance error in WordPress

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 and disable maintenance mode.

However, sometimes, due to a slow WordPress hosting server response or low memory issue, the update script will time out and interrupt the process. When this happens, WordPress does not get a chance to take your site out of maintenance mode.

In other words, your WordPress website will continue showing the maintenance mode notice, and you will need to manually fix it.

If this error is happening to you, don’t worry. Simply follow this guide so that you can resolve it in no time. You can use these quick links to skip to different parts of our tutorial:

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If you’d prefer written instructions, then just keep reading.

How to Fix the 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 an FTP client like FileZilla or your hosting’s file manager app.

Simply connect to your website’s files, find the .maintenance file, right-click on it, and select ‘Delete’.

Delete maintenance file

If you can’t find the .maintenance file in your WordPress root directory, then make sure your FTP client is set to show hidden files.

In FileZilla, you can force the client to show hidden files by clicking on Server » Force showing hidden files from the menu bar.

Show hidden files in FTP

Once the .maintenance file has been removed, your site will come out of maintenance mode, and the error should be fixed.

Troubleshooting the WordPress Maintenance Mode Error

Since we have helped thousands of users fix the ‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance’ error in WordPress, we have also helped users solve several unseen issues that can come up.

Below are some additional steps you might have to take:

WordPress Is 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 app or download it on your computer using FTP.

Next, you need to find the code:

 define ('WP_INSTALLING', true)

Then, 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 are 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 safely update WordPress.

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 online.

Next, you will need to log in 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 that it’s working properly.

How to Avoid the WordPress Maintenance Mode Error in the Future

We already know that the ‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance’ error is caused by a slow server response or a 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 to quickly click on the update link underneath each plugin. WordPress then staggers the update order. However, even a millisecond of delay in connection could cause a conflict, leading your site to be stuck in maintenance mode.

WordPress Plugin Update One at a Time

Instead of quickly clicking on the ‘Update’ link, we recommend patiently updating one plugin at a time.

How to Customize the Maintenance Mode Notification

An easier solution to avoid showing the default maintenance mode notification is by manually putting your WordPress site in maintenance mode before installing any updates.

The best way to do this is by installing and activating the SeedProd plugin. It is the best WordPress page builder plugin that comes with a maintenance mode feature.

You can customize your maintenance mode page using the drag-and-drop builder and integrate different email marketing tools.

Check out our SeedProd review if you want more details about the plugin.

First, you will need to install the SeedProd plugin on your website. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to SeedProd » Landing Pages from your WordPress admin panel and click on the ‘Set Up a Maintenance Mode Page’ button.

Click the Set up maintenance mode page button

After that, you will need to select a template for your maintenance mode page.

Simply hover over the template you want to use and click the check icon.

Select the maintenance mode template in SeedProd

Next, you can customize your maintenance mode page using the SeedProd drag-and-drop builder. The plugin offers standard blocks for text, images, and buttons and advanced blocks such as a countdown timer, contact form, and social sharing buttons.

Simply drag any block you want from the menu on your left onto the template on the right.

SeedProd visual editor

SeedProd also makes it super easy to arrange the blocks in the template the way you want. Plus, you can click on any element to edit its color, size, text, font, and more.

Once you are happy with the maintenance mode page, click the ‘Save’ button to store your changes. Next, head over to the ‘Page Settings’ tab and click the Page Status toggle to Publish your page.

Publish your maintenance mode page

Now, whenever you are updating your website, simply enable the maintenance mode page on your WordPress website.

To activate the page, head over to SeedProd » Pages from your WordPress dashboard and toggle Maintenance Mode to ‘Active.’

Activating maintenance mode for a WooCommerce store

You can then visit your website to see the maintenance mode page in action.

Here’s what it may look like:

Maintenance mode page preview

For ideas on how to design your maintenance mode page, check out our article on maintenance page ideas.

We hope this article helped you fix the ‘Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance’ error in WordPress. You may also want to read our guide on fixing the most common WordPress errors and the difference between coming soon vs maintenance mode.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

101 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. Jiří Vaněk says

    Thank you for explaining why this file is created on FTP. I haven’t been able to figure out why it creates sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t. I dealt with it mainly on foreign websites, when I was asked about a repair. I knew about the FTP file, but I didn’t know why it was created and stayed there. From your article I learned for the first time much more about how this whole mechanism works.

  3. Mich says

    Hi, this tutorial works for me temporarily; when I try to update a plugin (any one), it keeps saying that the update failed, and the maintenance error message comes back up again. I signed out and signed back in a few times, refreshed the page, deleted the maintenance file every time it appears again, but nothing’s working.

    Any idea what’s causing this?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      There are many possible reasons, we would recommend using the recommendation from the end of our article for a workaround!

      Admin

  4. Tek Child says

    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.

  5. James says

    This article done the trick for me, simply deleted the file from the directory. Useful post guys, thanks a lot.

    James

  6. Syed says

    Awesome, its really easy I was worried, but this articles helped me to get rid of all my worries. Thank you very much

  7. Joseph says

    Worked like magic. Thanks for the “straight to the point” approach to providing solutions

  8. Heather Cook says

    This is all great but I can’t login to the site anymore. How do I fix anything if I can’t login? Help???!!!

  9. amanda says

    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.

  10. Juan Carlos Rodríguez says

    Hi. Thanks a lot for this tutorial. You saved me from reseting my hosting account in order to restart my web design.

    God bless.

  11. Rahman says

    yay, my website live again after deleting maintenance files in cpanel, i’am wait for some minutes and keep maintenance, thanks for info

  12. citra lestari says

    Thank you, thank you. I was worried there but your advice and your commenters really helped

  13. Phors says

    Thank you. I found it. I have one question. Why we cannot update plugin? While I was updating I face that error.

  14. javad says

    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

  15. Eduard says

    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!

  16. Paul Okeke says

    This is a great article. saved me hours of research and frustration.
    Thanks for WPBeginners Editorial Team

  17. Becky says

    Thanks. Site back up and running. It got stuck in maintenance. Removed file from FTP and all back as it should be.

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