Resolving WordPress Maintenance Mode Issues

Resolving WordPress Maintenance Mode Issues

Have you ever found yourself confronted with the frustrating WordPress maintenance mode screen?

Commonly, this occurs when you are in the process of updating the core WordPress files. However, it can also happen during updates to themes or plugins. In such situations, your website becomes stuck in the update process, leaving you facing the unyielding maintenance screen.

So, how can you rectify this issue?

How to Rectify the Maintenance Mode Error

In this article, we’ll guide you through the process of swiftly resolving the WordPress maintenance mode error, allowing you to continue updating your website and delivering valuable content.

We will cover the following key areas:

• Understanding the Causes of WordPress Stuck in Maintenance Mode
• Steps to Fix the Maintenance Error
• Tips for Avoiding Future Maintenance Mode Problems
• Customizing Your Maintenance Page

Shall we proceed?

Understanding the Causes of WordPress Stuck in Maintenance Mode

It’s crucial to recognize that the WordPress maintenance page is not an error screen; instead, it serves as a notification page.

When you are making updates to your website, WordPress automatically activates a maintenance screen to inform your visitors about the ongoing changes. To achieve this, WordPress generates a temporary .maintenance file within your website’s root folder. Ideally, this notification is visible for only a brief moment.

However, there are instances where, due to slow response times from your WordPress hosting server or inadequate memory resources, your updates may time out, causing interruptions in the update process. When this happens, your website doesn’t get a chance to exit maintenance mode, and the maintenance screen persists. In such cases, you’ll need to manually remove it.

Steps to Fix the Maintenance Error

To take your WordPress website out of maintenance mode, the simplest method is to delete the .maintenance file. You can locate your website’s root folder by connecting to your files using FTP or through your site’s hosting settings.

If you don’t find a .maintenance file in the WordPress root directory, you may need to ensure that you have enabled the option in your FTP client to display hidden files.

If you are using the Filezilla FTP client, you can enable the display of hidden files by selecting ‘Server’ and then ‘Force showing hidden files’ in the menu bar.

Once you have removed the .maintenance file, your website should exit maintenance mode, and the maintenance page will no longer be displayed on your site.

Dealing with Maintenance Mode Without a Maintenance File

If you still cannot locate the .maintenance file in your root directory, even after enabling the display of hidden files, there are several steps you can take to resolve the issue.

Rename Your Plugins Folder: Initially, you can try renaming your ‘plugins/’ folder to ‘_plugins/’ to see if you can regain access to your site. If this works, revert the folder’s name to ‘plugins/’ and proceed to disable each plugin on your site, re-enabling them one by one until your site encounters an issue again. This will help identify the problematic plugin.

If renaming the plugins folder doesn’t restore access to your website, you can try disabling your WordPress theme by renaming the folder, as suggested above, to see if it resolves the issue. Once you’ve identified the problematic theme or plugin, you’ll need to manually install the plugin update to ensure it functions correctly.

If you continue to encounter a maintenance error, you can attempt one more solution, which is to update the ‘wp-activate.php’ file. You can find this file in the same location as the .maintenance file.

Rename the ‘wp-activate.php’ File: Open the file using your managed WordPress hosting company’s file manager or download it to your computer via FTP.

Locate the following line of code:

define ('WP_INSTALLING', true)

Change ‘true’ to ‘false’, so it looks like this:

define ('WP_INSTALLING', false)

After making these changes, save the file and re-upload it to the same location using your FTP client. If you are using your host’s file manager, simply save the file. Your site should now be out of maintenance mode.

But how can you prevent this from happening in the future? We’ll show you how next.

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