In this article we will be talking about wp maintenance mode “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute”, what causes it and also a few tips on how to prevent as well as get out of the WordPress maintenance mode in case your website gets stuck into it.
What Causes WP Maintenance Mode WordPress?
Each time you make changes to your WordPress site, mostly when doing themes, plugins or WordPress core updates, WordPress automatically places your site into maintenance mode meaning any user who tries to access the site will see the below message.
“Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute”
The wp maintenance mode is temporary and important in that it ensures the update process is completed without any interruption and to prevent broken pages, links appearing on the site till the update is completed. It is normally disabled automatically one wordpress is done with the update process.
However, sometimes wordpress fails to automatically set back to live status and your site might get stuck in this state for a much longer period. This doesn’t mean your site is hacked and you should not worry much.
One thing you need to know is that, when wordpress runs updates, it creates a .maintenance file on the root of your wordpress site and that file will show the below message to users, till the updates are done.
Some of the causes that may lead to wp maintenance mode Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute getting stuck or still showing on the site even if the updates have completed.
- Low memory on the site
- Slow server response
- Time out occurrence during script update or interruption
- Closed out your browser tab when the update was still in progress
- Updating several things (themes, plugins, Wp Core) or many plugins at the same time
Out of the above in my experience I have mostly encountered this when updating several plugins on a shared hosting platform with low memory. No matter the reason that might have led to wp maintenance mode, there are ways that can help you get out of this situation.
How To Fix WP Maintenance Mode “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute”
We are going to look into two ways on how to do this.
- Through the hosting cPanel
- Through FTP client like FileZilla
Method 1: Through the Hosting Cpanel
If your website uses cPanel hosting then you can easily delete the .maintenance file from your root site through File Manager.
- Login into your cPanel
- Choose File Manager under the Files section as shown below.
- In the File manager click on the folder name of your site then go to public_html/ folder and look for a file named .maintenance
- Right Click and then choose Delete
- Once you have removed the .maintenance file then open a new tab and check your site on it, your site should now load normally without the maintenance notification message.
Method 2: Through FTP client like FileZilla
This method is the same as the above, the only difference is that instead of logging in to your site through you cPanel hosting, you will be accessing site root files using FTP client like FileZilla and follow the same steps to delete the .maintenance file.
Tips for Preventing and Avoiding WP Maintenance Mode Issue
While getting your site out of maintenance mode is as simple as we have seen above, preventing this from happening is always something you really need to consider. Below are some of the measures you can take to prevent “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute”
- Avoid doing several updates at the same time: Kindly perform few updates at a time for example do not do theme, plugin and WordPress Core updates at the same time. OR Do not perform several plugins updates at the same time, as doing this might lead to high memory usage.
- Avoid closing windows browser while updates are in progress as it can interrupt the updates leading to server response timeout.
- Consider upgrading to a high hosting plan, this will help with faster server response as well as memory usage incase your hosting is running on low memory.