Running into errors on your WordPress site can be intimidating. Nonetheless, well-nigh errors give yous some clue as to what caused them, which tin can brand troubleshooting these mutual problems a lot easier. The 503 error is not every bit polite, unfortunately, and doesn't give you much information to proceed.

It helps to understand what the nigh common causes are for the 503 error in WordPress. After that, you'll need to exist methodical when information technology comes to troubleshooting the error, which ways following several steps in order to locate the root cause.

In this commodity, we'll cover what the 503 mistake is and how it typically manifests. And so we'll guide y'all through six steps in order to troubleshoot information technology. Allow's get to work!

What Is an HTTP Error 503?

The Internet Applied science Chore Strength (IETF) defines the 503 Service Unavailable as:

The 503 (Service Unavailable) status code indicates that the server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overload or scheduled maintenance, which will likely be alleviated after some delay. The server MAY send a Retry-After header field to suggest an advisable amount of fourth dimension for the client to wait before retrying the request.

When you encounter the 503 error, it means that the server in question is unavailable. That could exist because it's also busy, for example, or it'due south under maintenance. Different other similar error codes, 503 signifies that your website is online and running, but can't be reached at the nowadays moment.

What'southward so vexing nearly this detail error is that it barely gives you whatever information to keep. Most of the fourth dimension, information technology just shows upwards with a "Service temporarily unavailable" message. That'southward the equivalent of calling a eatery via phone, only to accept them tell y'all that they're closed but turn down to permit you know when they'll be open again.

If yous're lucky, the 503 error code volition have occurred considering your WordPress website is nether maintenance. WordPress very briefly sets your site to maintenance fashion when you're updating a plugin, a theme, or the core software:

HTTP 503 Error in WordPress
Maintenance fashion

Usually, this timeout is and then brief that no one will discover it. However, in those cases where the 503 error persists, you'll have a bigger problem to deal with. After all, not just will users be unable to visit your site, but you'll lose access to your WordPress admin area equally well. That ways you tin't update your site in any way, and in gild to troubleshoot it, you'll need to dig into its files.

Cheque Out Our Video Guide to The 503 Mistake

503 Error Variations

The 503 fault can show upward in a lot of means. However, near every variation comes accompanied by that 503 code, making it easy to identify.

Here are some of the variations you might come across, depending on your server configuration and browser:

  • 503 Service Unavailable
  • 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
  • HTTP Server Mistake 503
  • HTTP Error 503
  • Error 503 Service Unavailable
  • The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please endeavor once again later.

Whatever the code you run into might look like, information technology means you lot need to become to work fast earlier it affects your users negatively.

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How to Fix the 503 Error in WordPress (6 Steps)

Since yous oftentimes can't be sure what caused the 503 error in any given situation, you'll demand to go about troubleshooting it methodically. The following six sections each embrace a potential fix, aimed at resolving the different potential root causes.

After each step, take a moment to render to your website and see if the 503 error is gone. If it is, you've successfully fixed the issue. If not, continue on to the side by side step in the procedure.

1. Temporarily Deactivate Your WordPress Plugins

I of the almost mutual causes of the 503 fault in WordPress is plugin compatibility issues. To make up one's mind if that's what'due south happening, you'll demand to disable all of your site's plugins.

Since the 503 error prevents y'all from accessing the WordPress admin area, you'll need to use an FTP client for this footstep. If you don't have ane set, we recommend FileZilla.

Once your FTP client is gear up, connect to your website through information technology and navigate to your WordPress root folder. In instance you can't find it, information technology'due south usually called public_html, html, public, www, or your site'due south proper name. If you're a Kinsta client, it'due south your public folder.

WordPress root folder SFTP
WordPress root folder SFTP

Open that folder, and navigate to the wp-content directory. Inside, you'll see a folder called plugins, which contains individual subdirectories for each of the plugins installed on your site (both active and inactive).

What you lot're going to do now is right-click on the plugins folder, and rename information technology to something else. We recommend plugins.onetime or plugins.deactivated, then you can easily recognize it later.

WordPress plugins folder renamed
WordPress plugins folder renamed

WordPress will now not be able to find any of your plugins. When that happens, information technology will automatically disable those plugins.

At present, try accessing your WordPress dashboard. If the 503 error is gone, so you can assume that one of your plugins was the culprit. All yous take to do is figure out which 1 was at fault.

Return to the wp-content directory, and rename your original plugins folder correctly. Then, you'll need to disable each of your plugins ane by 1, until you discover the culprit.

To practice this, open the wp-content/plugins directory. Within, you'll detect one folder for each of your plugins. The process you're going to follow is much the same equally before:

  1. Start with the starting time folder, and rename it to anything you similar.
  2. Cheque your website to see if the error is gone.
  3. If it isn't, render the plugin folder from the previous step to its original name.
  4. Move on to the next plugin on your listing, repeating the above steps.

This process tin have a while if you take a lot of plugins, but information technology's vital to check each plugin in turn. If at any point you identify the plugin that's causing the fault, yous tin uninstall it or replace it with another tool.

If you make information technology to the stop of these steps without finding a solution, you can movement on to the side by side stage of troubleshooting.

2. Deactivate Your WordPress Theme

Now that you lot've ruled out your plugins as the crusade of the 503 error, it'south time to practise the aforementioned with your active theme. In fact, your theme could as well be creating compatibility issues.

Unfortunately, the procedure doesn't work the aforementioned as above. WordPress won't revert to the default theme if simply rename the theme folder, you would cease up with an error like "The theme directory "theme name" does not be." Or if y'all try to rename the entire theme directory folder, you terminate up with "Fault: The themes directory is either empty or doesn't exist. Please check your installation."

The theme directory does not exist error
The theme directory does not exist error

Therefore, you need to access your WordPress database by logging into phpMyAdmin. If you're a Kinsta client, this tin exist establish within the "Info" department of the MyKinsta dashboard.

MyKinsta phpMyAdmin
MyKinsta phpMyAdmin

Click into the "wp_options" table, then click on the "Search" tab. You will want to search under the "option_name" for template.

phpMyAdmin wp_options table
phpMyAdmin wp_options table

Under the "option_value" column you volition encounter the current name of your theme. Change this to one of the default themes, such as "twentynineteen."

Subscribe At present

wp_options template name
wp_options template proper name

Check your website again to see if this has fixed the error. If it did, it simply ways it's a problem with your WordPress theme and you might want to attempt reinstalling information technology or reverting to your about recent backup.

3. Temporarily Disable Your Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Sometimes, the 503 fault volition prove up not because of a problem on your website, but considering of your Content Commitment Network (CDN). If you lot're using a CDN, a quick style to figure out if that's the case is to temporarily disable it.

Every CDN should include some feature that enables you to pause its services. If you're on Kinsta, you can disable your Kinsta CDN by navigating to CDN → "Disable CDN" within your MyKinsta dashboard:

MyKinsta CDN enable/disable option
MyKinsta CDN enable/disable option

The process you need to follow may exist unlike depending on which CDN you're using. Cloudflare has also been known to cause 503 errors sometimes. If you tin can't find the choice to pause yours, cheque out your service's knowledge base of operations, which volition commonly contain detailed instructions.

If you don't use a CDN or find that pausing your service doesn't assist with your effect, there are still a few more fixes to attempt. Do recollect to reactivate your CDN earlier moving on.

4. Limit the WordPress 'Heartbeat' API

The WordPress Heartbeat is an API congenital into WordPress, which the platform uses for auto-saving content, showing you plugin notifications, letting you know when someone else is working on a post you're trying to access, and more than.

Simply like a regular heartbeat, the API works in the background with a high frequency so that it doesn't miss anything. As you might imagine, this API consumes server resources. Ordinarily, that'south not a problem but in some cases, it may pb to a 503 error if your server can't handle the load.

The quickest way to make up one's mind if the Heartbeat API is at the middle of your bug is to temporarily disable information technology. To do that, connect to your WordPress website via FTP once again, and and then open your electric current themes binder and look for the functions.php file inside:

WordPress theme functions.php file
WordPress theme functions.php file

Right-click on the file and select the View/Edit selection, which will open up it using your local text editor. Once it'due south open, you'll need to add together the following code snippet inside:

          add_action( 'init', 'stop_heartbeat', one ); office stop_heartbeat() { wp_deregister_script('heartbeat'); }        

Those three lines of code tell WordPress to disable the Heartbeat API. Salve the changes to the functions.php file, close it, and try to admission your website once again.

If the 503 error is gone, you lot'll know that the API was the problem. Disabling it altogether removes a lot of useful functionality, still. Instead, we recommend that you 'tedious downwardly' the Heartbeat, then that information technology doesn't cause problems.

The easiest way to do that is by installing the Heartbeat Command plugin. Activate the plugin and navigate to the Settings > Heartbeat Command section. Look for the Modify Heartbeat options, and drib the frequency to the lowest possible number:

Heartbeat Control plugin frequency
Heartbeat Command plugin frequency

Salvage the changes to your settings and render to the functions.php file you tweaked a while dorsum. For the above changes to work, you'll need to remove the string of code you added before and save your changes to the file.

At this phase, the 503 mistake should be gone if the Heartbeat API was the problem. If it isn't, and then it'due south time to try something different.

5. Increment Your Server's Resources

If the 503 error is still occurring despite all your attempts to gear up it so far, then there's a good gamble the trouble might exist due to a lack of server resources. That is to say, you'll need to upgrade your hosting plan to see if that fixes the result. This is specially true if you're using cheap WordPress hosting, as they tend to throttle resources. We don't do this at Kinsta.

Upgrading your programme is a big decision, nevertheless. The smart move is to outset contact your web hosting back up service and hash out the 503 error with them, as well as the steps you've taken and so far to try and solve it. The back up squad should be able to help you work out the cause and advise yous on whether y'all need to upgrade your plan or not.

6. Review Your Logs and Enable WP_DEBUG

You lot should as well take reward of your error logs. If you're a Kinsta client, you can hands see errors in the log viewer and enable WordPress debug mode in the MyKinsta dashboard. This can help you quickly narrow down the result, especially if it's resulting from a plugin on your site.

Check error logs for HTTP 503 errors
Check error logs for 503 errors

If your host doesn't have a logging tool, you can also add the post-obit code to your wp-config.php file to enable logging:

                      define            (            'WP_DEBUG'            ,            true            )            ;            define            (            'WP_DEBUG_LOG'            ,            true            )            ;            ascertain            (            'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY'            ,            imitation            )            ;                  

The logs are typically located in the /wp-content directory. Within it, look for a file chosen debug.log and open information technology up.

Others, like here at Kinsta might have a dedicated folder chosen "logs".

WordPress error logs folder (SFTP)
WordPress error logs folder (SFTP)

Interpreting your debug log can be a chip intimidating just it's not equally hard to read as you might imagine. In a nutshell, the log contains each error that pops upwardly on your site in chronological club. Information technology shows which file caused each mistake, as well equally which specific lines of code were involved.

Beware: you're not going to find direct references to the 503 error within your log. Even then, if all else fails, information technology can point you in the right management by showing y'all what files are causing problems. That way, you'll know where to focus your efforts next. As we mentioned in the previous pace, now is a practiced time to go in touch with your hosting provider if you need further assistance resolving this mistake.

You can also cheque the log files in Apache and Nginx, which are commonly located here:

  • Apache: /var/log/apache2/error.log
  • Nginx: /var/log/nginx/fault.log

To larn more than, delight check out our web server showdown: Nginx vs Apache.

If y'all're a Kinsta customer you can also take advantage of our analytics tool to get a breakdown of the total number of 503 errors and meet how often and when they are occurring. This can help you troubleshoot if this is an ongoing effect, or mayhap something that has resolved itself.

If the 503 error is displaying because of a fatal PHP mistake, you can too try enabling PHP error reporting. Simply add together the following code to the file throwing the error. Typically you can narrow downward the file in the panel tab of Google Chrome DevTools.

                      ini_set            (            'display_errors'            ,            1            )            ;            ini_set            (            'display_startup_errors'            ,            1            )            ;            error_reporting            (            E_ALL            )            ;                  

And you might demand to also modify your php.ini file with the post-obit:

          display_errors            =            on        

Summary

If you lot're lucky, the 503 mistake will just evidence up when y'all put your website into maintenance fashion. However, if information technology appears without warning, and then you'll have to roll up your sleeves and do some troubleshooting.

To get at the root cause of the 503 fault, y'all'll need to follow these steps to set up it:

  • Temporarily deactivate your WordPress plugins.
  • Deactivate your WordPress theme.
  • Disable your CDN.
  • Limit the WordPress Heartbeat API.
  • Increase your server resource.
  • Review your logs and enable WP_DEBUG.

Have y'all ever encounter the HTTP 503 error in WordPress? Share your experiences with usa in the comments department below!


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