Running into errors on your WordPress site can be intimidating. Even so, most errors give you some clue as to what acquired them, which can make troubleshooting these common issues a lot easier. The 503 fault is not as polite, unfortunately, and doesn't give yous much information to go along.

It helps to empathize what the most common causes are for the 503 error in WordPress. After that, you'll demand to be methodical when it comes to troubleshooting the fault, which means following several steps in guild to locate the root crusade.

In this article, we'll embrace what the 503 error is and how information technology typically manifests. So we'll guide yous through vi steps in guild to troubleshoot it. Let'south become to piece of work!

What Is an HTTP Fault 503?

The Internet Engineering Chore Force (IETF) defines the 503 Service Unavailable every bit:

The 503 (Service Unavailable) condition code indicates that the server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overload or scheduled maintenance, which will likely exist alleviated later on some filibuster. The server MAY send a Retry-Later header field to advise an appropriate amount of time for the client to wait before retrying the request.

When you lot encounter the 503 error, it means that the server in question is unavailable. That could be because it's too decorated, for example, or it's under maintenance. Dissimilar other similar error codes, 503 signifies that your website is online and running, merely can't exist reached at the present moment.

What'due south so vexing about this particular mistake is that it barely gives you any information to go on. Most of the time, it but shows upward with a "Service temporarily unavailable" message. That's the equivalent of calling a restaurant via phone, only to take them tell you that they're closed but refuse to let yous know when they'll exist open once more.

If y'all're lucky, the 503 error lawmaking will have occurred because your WordPress website is under maintenance. WordPress very briefly sets your site to maintenance mode when y'all're updating a plugin, a theme, or the cadre software:

HTTP 503 Error in WordPress
Maintenance mode

Commonly, this timeout is and so cursory that no one will notice information technology. However, in those cases where the 503 error persists, you'll have a bigger problem to bargain with. After all, not only will users exist unable to visit your site, but you'll lose admission to your WordPress admin area as well. That ways you can't update your site in any way, and in order to troubleshoot it, you'll need to dig into its files.

503 Error Variations

The 503 error can show up in a lot of ways. However, virtually every variation comes accompanied by that 503 lawmaking, making information technology easy to identify.

Here are some of the variations yous might encounter, depending on your server configuration and browser:

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

Whatsoever the lawmaking you run into might look like, it ways you lot need to get to work fast earlier information technology affects your users negatively.

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

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

Later on each step, have a moment to return to your website and see if the 503 fault is gone. If information technology is, you've successfully fixed the issue. If non, continue on to the adjacent stride in the process.

1. Temporarily Deactivate Your WordPress Plugins

I of the almost common causes of the 503 error in WordPress is plugin compatibility issues. To determine if that's what's happening, you'll need to disable all of your site's plugins.

Since the 503 error prevents y'all from accessing the WordPress admin area, you'll demand to use an FTP client for this step. If you don't take one set upwards, nosotros recommend FileZilla.

Once your FTP client is fix, connect to your website through it and navigate to your WordPress root folder. In example you tin't find information technology, it's usually called public_html, html, public, www, or your site's name. If you're a Kinsta client, it'southward your public folder.

WordPress root folder SFTP
WordPress root folder SFTP

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

What yous're going to exercise now is correct-click on the plugins folder, and rename it to something else. We recommend plugins.one-time or plugins.deactivated, so you tin easily recognize information technology later.

WordPress plugins folder renamed
WordPress plugins binder renamed

WordPress will now non be able to discover whatsoever of your plugins. When that happens, it will automatically disable those plugins.

Now, endeavor accessing your WordPress dashboard. If the 503 error is gone, so y'all tin assume that ane of your plugins was the culprit. All yous have to do is figure out which ane was at fault.

Return to the wp-content directory, and rename your original plugins folder correctly. Then, you lot'll need to disable each of your plugins one by one, until y'all notice the culprit.

To do this, open the wp-content/plugins directory. Inside, y'all'll find one folder for each of your plugins. The process you're going to follow is much the same as before:

  1. Beginning with the first folder, and rename it to anything y'all like.
  2. Check your website to see if the error is gone.
  3. If information technology isn't, return the plugin folder from the previous step to its original name.
  4. Move on to the adjacent plugin on your listing, repeating the above steps.

This process can accept a while if you have a lot of plugins, but it's vital to cheque each plugin in plough. If at any point you place the plugin that'south causing the error, yous can uninstall it or replace it with another tool.

If you lot get in to the finish of these steps without finding a solution, you can movement on to the next stage of troubleshooting.

2. Deactivate Your WordPress Theme

Now that yous've ruled out your plugins every bit the cause of the 503 error, it's time to practise the aforementioned with your active theme. In fact, your theme could also be creating compatibility issues.

Unfortunately, the process doesn't work the same as above. WordPress won't revert to the default theme if simply rename the theme folder, you would finish up with an error like "The theme directory "theme proper noun" does not exist." Or if you try to rename the entire theme directory folder, you cease up with "Error: The themes directory is either empty or doesn't exist. Delight check your installation."

The theme directory does not exist error
The theme directory does non exist mistake

Therefore, you need to access your WordPress database by logging into phpMyAdmin. If you're a Kinsta client, this can exist found inside the "Info" section 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 tabular array

Under the "option_value" column you volition see the current proper name of your theme. Change this to one of the default themes, such every bit "twentynineteen."

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wp_options template name
wp_options template name

Check your website again to run into if this has fixed the error. If it did, information technology just means information technology's a problem with your WordPress theme and y'all might desire to try reinstalling information technology or reverting to your almost recent backup.

3. Temporarily Disable Your Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Sometimes, the 503 mistake will show up not because of a problem on your website, but because of your Content Delivery Network (CDN). If yous're using a CDN, a quick way to figure out if that's the case is to temporarily disable it.

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

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

The process you demand to follow may be different depending on which CDN you're using. Cloudflare has also been known to cause 503 errors sometimes. If y'all can't discover the option to pause yours, cheque out your service'south knowledge base of operations, which will normally comprise detailed instructions.

If you don't use a CDN or detect that pausing your service doesn't assist with your issue, there are still a few more than fixes to endeavour. Practice remember to reactivate your CDN before moving on.

4. Limit the WordPress 'Heartbeat' API

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

Only like a regular heartbeat, the API works in the groundwork with a high frequency so that information technology doesn't miss anything. As y'all might imagine, this API consumes server resources. Usually, that's non a trouble but in some cases, it may pb to a 503 mistake if your server can't handle the load.

The quickest style to determine if the Heartbeat API is at the middle of your problems is to temporarily disable it. To do that, connect to your WordPress website via FTP once again, and then open up your current themes folder and look for the functions.php file within:

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

Correct-click on the file and select the View/Edit option, which will open it using your local text editor. Once information technology's open, y'all'll need to add together the following lawmaking snippet within:

          add_action( 'init', 'stop_heartbeat', 1 ); function stop_heartbeat() { wp_deregister_script('heartbeat'); }        

Those iii lines of code tell WordPress to disable the Heartbeat API. Save the changes to the functions.php file, close it, and try to access your website again.

If the 503 error is gone, you'll know that the API was the problem. Disabling it birthday removes a lot of useful functionality, however. Instead, we recommend that you 'slow down' the Heartbeat, so that it doesn't cause problems.

The easiest way to do that is by installing the Heartbeat Control plugin. Actuate the plugin and navigate to the Settings > Heartbeat Control section. Look for the Modify Heartbeat options, and drop the frequency to the everyman possible number:

Heartbeat Control plugin frequency
Heartbeat Control plugin frequency

Save the changes to your settings and render to the functions.php file you lot tweaked a while back. For the above changes to work, you'll demand to remove the string of code yous added before and save your changes to the file.

At this phase, the 503 error should exist gone if the Heartbeat API was the problem. If it isn't, so it's time to try something different.

5. Increment Your Server's Resources

If the 503 error is nevertheless occurring despite all your attempts to fix it and then far, then there's a skillful chance the problem might be due to a lack of server resources. That is to say, yous'll need to upgrade your hosting plan to see if that fixes the upshot. This is specially truthful if you lot're using inexpensive WordPress hosting, equally they tend to throttle resources. We don't do this at Kinsta.

Upgrading your plan is a large determination, however. The smart move is to first contact your web hosting back up service and hash out the 503 fault with them, likewise as the steps you've taken so far to try and solve it. The support team should be able to aid you lot work out the cause and advise y'all on whether you demand to upgrade your plan or not.

At Kinsta, our support squad is more than happy to accept a look for you lot. We can even temporarily enable New Relic to meet if we can pinpoint the issue down to something on your site that is causing the problem.

6. Review Your Logs and Enable WP_DEBUG

You should also accept advantage of your error logs. If you lot're a Kinsta customer, you can easily see errors in the log viewer and enable WordPress debug way in the MyKinsta dashboard. This can help you quickly narrow downwards the consequence, especially if it'south 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 together the following code to your wp-config.php file to enable logging:

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

The logs are typically located in the /wp-content directory. Inside information technology, wait for a file called debug.log and open up it upward.

Others, like here at Kinsta might take a dedicated folder called "logs".

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

Interpreting your debug log can be a bit intimidating but it's non equally hard to read as yous might imagine. In a nutshell, the log contains each fault that pops up on your site in chronological lodge. It shows which file caused each fault, too as which specific lines of code were involved.

Beware: you're non going to observe direct references to the 503 fault inside your log. Even so, if all else fails, information technology can betoken you lot in the correct direction by showing you what files are causing problems. That style, y'all'll know where to focus your efforts next. As we mentioned in the previous step, at present is a proficient fourth dimension to make it touch with your hosting provider if you need further assistance resolving this error.

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

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

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

If you're a Kinsta client you tin can also take advantage of our analytics tool to get a breakdown of the total number of 503 errors and see how oftentimes and when they are occurring. This can help you troubleshoot if this is an ongoing result, or perhaps something that has resolved itself.

If the 503 error is displaying considering of a fatal PHP mistake, you tin also try enabling PHP error reporting. Simply add the following code to the file throwing the error. Typically you lot can narrow downward the file in the console tab of Google Chrome DevTools.

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

And y'all might demand to likewise modify your php.ini file with the following:

          display_errors            =            on        

Summary

If you're lucky, the 503 mistake will only evidence upwards when you put your website into maintenance mode. Notwithstanding, if information technology appears without warning, then you'll have to whorl up your sleeves and practice some troubleshooting.

To become at the root cause of the 503 error, you'll need to follow these steps to ready it:

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

Have yous ever run across the HTTP 503 fault in WordPress? Share your experiences with united states of america in the comments department beneath!


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