Running into errors on your WordPress site tin can be intimidating. However, about errors give you some clue as to what acquired them, which tin can make troubleshooting these common issues a lot easier. The 503 mistake is not as polite, unfortunately, and doesn't requite you much information to keep.

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

In this article, we'll cover what the 503 fault is and how it typically manifests. And then we'll guide you through six steps in gild to troubleshoot it. Permit's become to work!

What Is an HTTP Error 503?

The Internet Engineering Task Forcefulness (IETF) defines the 503 Service Unavailable equally:

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-After header field to advise an appropriate amount of time for the client to look before retrying the asking.

When yous encounter the 503 fault, information technology ways that the server in question is unavailable. That could be considering it's also busy, for instance, or it's under maintenance. Dissimilar other similar error codes, 503 signifies that your website is online and running, only tin can't be reached at the present moment.

What's so vexing most this particular fault is that it barely gives you any information to go along. Most of the time, it just shows up with a "Service temporarily unavailable" message. That's the equivalent of calling a eating house via phone, merely to have them tell yous that they're closed but refuse to allow yous know when they'll be open up again.

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

HTTP 503 Error in WordPress
Maintenance style

Usually, this timeout is then cursory that no ane will notice it. However, in those cases where the 503 error persists, yous'll have a bigger trouble to deal with. Later on all, not only will users be unable to visit your site, but you lot'll lose access to your WordPress admin area as well. That means you can't update your site in any style, and in order to troubleshoot it, you lot'll demand to dig into its files.

503 Error Variations

The 503 error can show up in a lot of means. However, almost every variation comes accompanied by that 503 lawmaking, making it piece of cake to identify.

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

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

Whatever the code yous run into might wait like, information technology means you need to get to work fast earlier it affects your users negatively.

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

Since you often can't be certain what caused the 503 mistake in whatever given situation, you'll need to become about troubleshooting information technology methodically. The post-obit six sections each cover a potential fix, aimed at resolving the different potential root causes.

After each step, take a moment to return to your website and see if the 503 error is gone. If information technology is, you've successfully fixed the issue. If not, continue on to the next step in the process.

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'due south what's happening, you lot'll need to disable all of your site's plugins.

Since the 503 error prevents you from accessing the WordPress admin area, you'll need to employ an FTP client for this step. If yous don't have 1 gear up, we recommend FileZilla.

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

WordPress root folder SFTP
WordPress root binder SFTP

Open that binder, and navigate to the wp-content directory. Inside, you'll see a folder called plugins, which contains private 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.old or plugins.deactivated, then yous can hands recognize it subsequently.

WordPress plugins folder renamed
WordPress plugins binder renamed

WordPress volition at present not be able to find 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, and so you can assume that ane of your plugins was the culprit. All you lot have to do is figure out which i was at error.

Return to the wp-content directory, and rename your original plugins folder correctly. Then, you'll demand to disable each of your plugins one past one, until you detect the culprit.

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

  1. Starting time with the first binder, and rename it to anything you like.
  2. Bank check your website to see if the error is gone.
  3. If it isn't, return the plugin folder from the previous step to its original name.
  4. Move on to the next plugin on your list, repeating the to a higher place steps.

This procedure tin take a while if you take a lot of plugins, but it'due south vital to check each plugin in plow. If at whatsoever betoken you place the plugin that's causing the error, yous can uninstall it or replace it with another tool.

If you lot make it to the stop of these steps without finding a solution, you lot can motility on to the side by side stage of troubleshooting.

two. Conciliate Your WordPress Theme

Now that you've ruled out your plugins equally the crusade of the 503 error, it'southward fourth dimension to practice the same with your active theme. In fact, your theme could also be creating compatibility problems.

Unfortunately, the procedure doesn't work the same as above. WordPress won't revert to the default theme if simply rename the theme folder, yous would finish upwardly with an fault like "The theme directory "theme name" does not be." Or if you try to rename the entire theme directory folder, you end 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 non exist fault

Therefore, you need to admission your WordPress database by logging into phpMyAdmin. If y'all're a Kinsta client, this can be institute 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 volition want to search under the "option_name" for template.

phpMyAdmin wp_options table
phpMyAdmin wp_options table

Under the "option_value" column y'all volition see the current name of your theme. Change this to one of the default themes, such as "twentynineteen."

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wp_options template name
wp_options template name

Check your website again to meet if this has stock-still the mistake. If it did, it simply ways it's a problem with your WordPress theme and you might want to try reinstalling it or reverting to your most recent backup.

three. Temporarily Disable Your Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Sometimes, the 503 error will prove up not considering of a problem on your website, but because of your Content Commitment Network (CDN). If you'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 you to pause its services. If you're on Kinsta, you lot tin can disable your Kinsta CDN past navigating to CDN → "Disable CDN" within your MyKinsta dashboard:

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

The process you demand to follow may exist different depending on which CDN you're using. Cloudflare has also been known to cause 503 errors sometimes. If you can't find the option to pause yours, bank check out your service's knowledge base of operations, which will ordinarily contain detailed instructions.

If you don't employ a CDN or find that pausing your service doesn't help with your effect, there are nonetheless a few more fixes to try. Do call up to reactivate your CDN before moving on.

four. 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 yous know when someone else is working on a mail service you're trying to access, and more.

Just like a regular heartbeat, the API works in the groundwork with a high frequency so that it doesn't miss anything. Every bit you might imagine, this API consumes server resources. Usually, that'south not a problem just in some cases, information technology may lead to a 503 fault if your server can't handle the load.

The quickest way to determine if the Heartbeat API is at the centre of your problems is to temporarily disable information technology. To do that, connect to your WordPress website via FTP once more, and then open your current themes folder and look for the functions.php file within:

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

Right-click on the file and select the View/Edit option, which will open it using your local text editor. In one case it's open, you'll need to add together the following code snippet within:

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

Those three lines of lawmaking tell WordPress to disable the Heartbeat API. Save the changes to the functions.php file, close it, and endeavour to access your website once more.

If the 503 mistake 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 y'all 'dull down' the Heartbeat, so that it doesn't cause problems.

The easiest mode to practice that is past 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 lowest possible number:

Heartbeat Control plugin frequency
Heartbeat Control plugin frequency

Salve the changes to your settings and return to the functions.php file you tweaked a while back. For the higher up changes to work, you'll need to remove the string of lawmaking y'all added before and salve your changes to the file.

At this stage, the 503 error should exist gone if the Heartbeat API was the problem. If it isn't, then it'due south time to try something different.

5. Increase Your Server'south Resources

If the 503 error is still occurring despite all your attempts to prepare information technology then far, then at that place'southward a good chance the trouble might exist due to a lack of server resources. That is to say, yous'll demand to upgrade your hosting plan to come across if that fixes the issue. This is especially truthful if you're using inexpensive WordPress hosting, every bit they tend to throttle resources. Nosotros don't do this at Kinsta.

Upgrading your plan is a large decision, withal. The smart move is to showtime contact your web hosting support service and discuss the 503 error with them, likewise as the steps you lot've taken and so far to effort and solve information technology. The support team should exist able to help you work out the cause and advise you on whether you need to upgrade your plan or not.

At Kinsta, our back up team is more than happy to take a look for you. Nosotros can even temporarily enable New Relic to see if nosotros can pinpoint the effect down to something on your site that is causing the trouble.

6. Review Your Logs and Enable WP_DEBUG

You lot should also take advantage of your error logs. If you're a Kinsta customer, yous can easily see errors in the log viewer and enable WordPress debug fashion in the MyKinsta dashboard. This can help you chop-chop narrow down the issue, especially if it's resulting from a plugin on your site.

Check error logs for HTTP 503 errors
Bank 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            )            ;            ascertain            (            'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY'            ,            false            )            ;                  

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

Others, like here at Kinsta might take a defended binder called "logs".

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

Interpreting your debug log can be a fleck intimidating but it's not as hard to read as y'all might imagine. In a nutshell, the log contains each error that pops up on your site in chronological order. Information technology shows which file caused each error, 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. Nevertheless, if all else fails, it tin betoken yous in the correct management by showing you what files are causing problems. That way, y'all'll know where to focus your efforts next. As we mentioned in the previous step, now is a good fourth dimension to get in touch with your hosting provider if you demand further aid resolving this error.

Yous tin also check the log files in Apache and Nginx, which are ordinarily located hither:

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

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

If you're a Kinsta client y'all tin can besides take advantage of our analytics tool to get a breakdown of the total number of 503 errors and come across how often and when they are occurring. This tin assist you lot troubleshoot if this is an ongoing issue, or possibly something that has resolved itself.

If the 503 error is displaying because of a fatal PHP error, you can also endeavour enabling PHP mistake reporting. Simply add the following code to the file throwing the error. Typically yous can narrow down the file in the console tab of Google Chrome DevTools.

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

And yous might need to also modify your php.ini file with the following:

          display_errors            =            on        

Summary

If you're lucky, the 503 error will simply show up when you put your website into maintenance mode. Still, if it appears without warning, then you'll have to roll up your sleeves and practise some troubleshooting.

To become at the root cause of the 503 error, y'all'll need to follow these steps to fix it:

  • Temporarily conciliate 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 you ever run into the HTTP 503 error in WordPress? Share your experiences with us in the comments section beneath!


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