Running into errors on your WordPress site can exist intimidating. However, almost errors give you some inkling equally to what caused them, which tin brand troubleshooting these common issues a lot easier. The 503 error is non as polite, unfortunately, and doesn't give you much information to go on.

Information technology helps to understand what the most common causes are for the 503 error in WordPress. Afterwards that, you'll need to be methodical when information technology comes to troubleshooting the error, which means following several steps in order to locate the root cause.

In this article, nosotros'll cover what the 503 fault is and how it typically manifests. And then we'll guide y'all through vi steps in lodge to troubleshoot it. Let'due south become to work!

What Is an HTTP Error 503?

The Internet Engineering Task Force (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 exist alleviated after some delay. The server MAY send a Retry-Afterwards header field to suggest an appropriate amount of time for the customer to wait before retrying the request.

When you encounter the 503 mistake, it means that the server in question is unavailable. That could exist because information technology's too decorated, for example, or it's nether maintenance. Unlike other like error codes, 503 signifies that your website is online and running, but can't exist reached at the present moment.

What's so vexing nigh this item fault is that it barely gives you whatsoever information to go on. Most of the fourth dimension, it just shows up with a "Service temporarily unavailable" message. That'due south the equivalent of calling a restaurant via telephone, simply to accept them tell you that they're closed just refuse to let you lot know when they'll be open up again.

If you lot're lucky, the 503 fault lawmaking will have occurred because your WordPress website is under maintenance. WordPress very briefly sets your site to maintenance mode when yous're updating a plugin, a theme, or the core software:

HTTP 503 Error in WordPress
Maintenance mode

Usually, this timeout is so cursory that no one will notice information technology. All the same, in those cases where the 503 error persists, you lot'll have a bigger problem to bargain with. After all, not only volition users exist unable to visit your site, but you'll lose access to your WordPress admin area every bit well. That means you tin can't update your site in any mode, and in guild to troubleshoot it, you'll need to dig into its files.

503 Fault Variations

The 503 fault tin can prove upward in a lot of ways. Withal, almost every variation comes accompanied by that 503 code, making it 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 Error 503
  • Error 503 Service Unavailable
  • The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or chapters problems. Delight endeavor again later.

Whatsoever the code you run into might look like, information technology means you need to get to work fast before it affects your users negatively.

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How to Ready the 503 Fault in WordPress (half dozen Steps)

Since y'all often tin't be certain what caused the 503 error in any given situation, y'all'll demand to get about troubleshooting it methodically. The following six sections each cover a potential fix, aimed at resolving the dissimilar potential root causes.

After each footstep, take a moment to return to your website and see if the 503 error is gone. If information technology is, yous've successfully stock-still the upshot. If non, continue on to the adjacent pace in the procedure.

1. Temporarily Deactivate Your WordPress Plugins

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

Since the 503 error prevents you from accessing the WordPress admin expanse, you'll need to utilize an FTP customer for this stride. If you don't have one set up, we recommend FileZilla.

Once your FTP customer is ready, connect to your website through information technology and navigate to your WordPress root folder. In case you tin can't notice information technology, it's ordinarily called public_html, html, public, www, or your site's proper noun. If you're a Kinsta client, it's your public binder.

WordPress root folder SFTP
WordPress root binder SFTP

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

What you're going to exercise now is right-click on the plugins folder, and rename it to something else. We recommend plugins.one-time or plugins.deactivated, so you can hands recognize it later.

WordPress plugins folder renamed
WordPress plugins folder renamed

WordPress will now not be able to notice any of your plugins. When that happens, it will automatically disable those plugins.

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

Return to the wp-content directory, and rename your original plugins binder correctly. And then, you'll need to disable each of your plugins 1 by 1, until you find the culprit.

To practice this, open the wp-content/plugins directory. Inside, you'll find 1 folder for each of your plugins. The process yous're going to follow is much the same as before:

  1. Beginning with the first folder, and rename it to anything you similar.
  2. Cheque your website to see if the error is gone.
  3. If information technology isn't, render the plugin folder from the previous step to its original proper name.
  4. Move on to the side by side plugin on your list, repeating the higher up steps.

This procedure can have a while if you have a lot of plugins, but it'south vital to check each plugin in plow. If at any point you identify the plugin that's causing the error, you lot tin uninstall it or replace it with another tool.

If you brand information technology to the terminate of these steps without finding a solution, y'all can move on to the next stage of troubleshooting.

2. Deactivate Your WordPress Theme

Now that you've ruled out your plugins every bit the cause of the 503 mistake, it's time to do the same with your active theme. In fact, your theme could besides be creating compatibility bug.

Unfortunately, the procedure doesn't work the same as above. WordPress won't revert to the default theme if only rename the theme folder, you lot would end up with an error like "The theme directory "theme name" does not exist." Or if you endeavour to rename the unabridged theme directory folder, yous terminate up with "ERROR: The themes directory is either empty or doesn't be. Please check your installation."

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

Therefore, y'all need to access your WordPress database by logging into phpMyAdmin. If you lot're a Kinsta client, this can be found within the "Info" section of the MyKinsta dashboard.

MyKinsta phpMyAdmin
MyKinsta phpMyAdmin

Click into the "wp_options" tabular array, so 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 y'all will encounter the current name of your theme. Change this to one of the default themes, such equally "twentynineteen."

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wp_options template name
wp_options template proper noun

Cheque your website once again to see if this has fixed the error. If information technology did, it simply means it's a problem with your WordPress theme and y'all might want to try reinstalling information technology or reverting to your most recent fill-in.

three. Temporarily Disable Your Content Commitment Network (CDN)

Sometimes, the 503 fault will show upwards not because of a problem on your website, just considering of your Content Delivery Network (CDN). If you lot're using a CDN, a quick mode to figure out if that'due south the example is to temporarily disable it.

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

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

The process y'all demand to follow may be different depending on which CDN you're using. Cloudflare has also been known to crusade 503 errors sometimes. If you tin't find the pick to intermission yours, bank check out your service's noesis base of operations, which will unremarkably contain detailed instructions.

If you don't apply a CDN or find that pausing your service doesn't aid with your event, there are still a few more than fixes to try. Exercise retrieve to reactivate your CDN before 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 y'all plugin notifications, letting you know when someone else is working on a post you're trying to access, and more.

Just like a regular heartbeat, the API works in the background with a loftier frequency and so that information technology doesn't miss anything. As you might imagine, this API consumes server resources. Usually, that's not a trouble but in some cases, information technology may pb to a 503 error if your server can't handle the load.

The quickest way to determine if the Heartbeat API is at the center of your problems is to temporarily disable it. To do that, connect to your WordPress website via FTP over again, then open up your 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 it using your local text editor. Once it'due south open, you'll need to add the following code 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, shut information technology, and endeavour to admission your website again.

If the 503 error is gone, you'll know that the API was the problem. Disabling it altogether removes a lot of useful functionality, however. Instead, we recommend that you lot 'slow down' the Heartbeat, and then that it doesn't crusade bug.

The easiest mode to practice that is by installing the Heartbeat Command plugin. Activate the plugin and navigate to the Settings > Heartbeat Control section. Expect for the Change Heartbeat options, and drop the frequency to the lowest possible number:

Heartbeat Control plugin frequency
Heartbeat Control plugin frequency

Save the changes to your settings and return to the functions.php file you tweaked a while back. For the in a higher place 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 fault should exist gone if the Heartbeat API was the trouble. If it isn't, and then it'southward time to effort something dissimilar.

v. Increase 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 hazard the trouble might be due to a lack of server resources. That is to say, you lot'll need to upgrade your hosting program to see if that fixes the issue. This is especially true if you're using cheap WordPress hosting, as they tend to throttle resources. Nosotros don't do this at Kinsta.

Upgrading your plan is a big decision, however. The smart move is to first contact your web hosting support service and discuss the 503 error with them, as well as the steps y'all've taken so far to try and solve it. The support team should exist able to help you work out the cause and advise you on whether you demand to upgrade your plan or non.

At Kinsta, our support team is more than happy to take a look for yous. We tin can even temporarily enable New Relic to see 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

Yous should also have advantage of your fault logs. If you're a Kinsta customer, you can hands see errors in the log viewer and enable WordPress debug style in the MyKinsta dashboard. This can help you quickly narrow down the event, particularly if information technology'due 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, y'all can also add the following code to your wp-config.php file to enable logging:

                      ascertain            (            'WP_DEBUG'            ,            truthful            )            ;            define            (            'WP_DEBUG_LOG'            ,            truthful            )            ;            define            (            'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY'            ,            false            )            ;                  

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

Others, similar here at Kinsta might have a dedicated binder called "logs".

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

Interpreting your debug log can be a bit intimidating merely information technology'south not as hard to read as you might imagine. In a nutshell, the log contains each fault that pops upwardly on your site in chronological order. It shows which file caused each error, too as which specific lines of lawmaking were involved.

Beware: you're not going to find direct references to the 503 error within your log. Notwithstanding, if all else fails, it can indicate you in the right management by showing you what files are causing problems. That way, you'll know where to focus your efforts next. As we mentioned in the previous footstep, now is a good fourth dimension to get in touch with your hosting provider if you need farther help resolving this error.

You can too check the log files in Apache and Nginx, which are usually located hither:

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

To learn more, please check out our web server showdown: Nginx vs Apache.

If y'all're a Kinsta client you can also accept advantage of our analytics tool to get a breakdown of the total number of 503 errors and run into how oft and when they are occurring. This can help you troubleshoot if this is an ongoing consequence, or perhaps something that has resolved itself.

If the 503 error is displaying because of a fatal PHP mistake, you can as well endeavor enabling PHP fault reporting. Simply add the following code to the file throwing the mistake. Typically y'all can narrow down the file in the console tab of Google Chrome DevTools.

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

And you might demand to also alter your php.ini file with the following:

          display_errors            =            on        

Summary

If you lot're lucky, the 503 error will only bear witness up when you put your website into maintenance mode. However, if it appears without warning, so you'll take to roll upwards your sleeves and do some troubleshooting.

To get at the root cause of the 503 error, you'll need to follow these steps to set information technology:

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

Take you ever run into the HTTP 503 error in WordPress? Share your experiences with us in the comments department below!


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