WordPress stuck in maintenance mode: what to do

When WordPress updates a plugin, a theme or itself, it first creates a small file called .maintenance in the folder where your site is installed. While that file exists, every visitor sees the maintenance message. When the update finishes, WordPress deletes the file. If the update is interrupted part way through, the file never gets deleted and the site stays locked.

Updates get interrupted more often than you would expect. On shared hosting a script is usually allowed about thirty seconds to run, and updating six plugins in one go can take longer than that. Closing the browser tab too early, a dropped internet connection, a memory limit on the hosting account, or a power cut during the update all have the same effect.

• Open your hosting file manager. On Xneelo, log in to the Control Panel, open the domain and choose File Manager. On cPanel hosts it is also called File Manager. You can also use an FTP program such as FileZilla if you have the FTP login details; Xneelo lists them under the domain’s FTP section, and its servers use plain FTP rather than the encrypted FTPS option.
• Go to the folder that contains wp-config.php. This is the folder where WordPress is installed. On Xneelo the FTP login usually puts you there already. On other hosts look for a folder called public_html, www or htdocs. You will know you are in the right place when you see the folders wp-admin, wp-content and wp-includes.
• Switch on hidden files. The file name starts with a dot, and most file managers hide those files by default. In FileZilla the option is under Server, then “Force showing hidden files”. Web-based file managers have a similar option in their settings or view menu.
• Delete the .maintenance file. Only that file. Leave everything else alone.
• Reload your site. It should come back immediately. Then log in to the admin and go to Dashboard, then Updates, to check whether the update you started actually completed.

If you or your developer can use the command line on the server, the same fix is one command from the WordPress folder: rm .maintenance. If WP-CLI is installed, wp maintenance-mode deactivate does the same thing and tells you if there was no file to remove.

WordPress ignores a maintenance file that is more than ten minutes old, so if the message has been up for an hour, something is showing you a saved copy of the page rather than the live site. Clear the cache in your caching plugin if you have one, then clear any cache your host provides, then open the site in a private browser window. If you use Cloudflare or another CDN, it has its own cache with a purge button under its Caching section.

If that still does not help, check whether a maintenance-mode or “coming soon” plugin has been switched on. Those plugins show their own page rather than the standard WordPress message, and they are turned off under Plugins in the admin, not in the file manager.

Sometimes deleting the file removes the maintenance message but you get a blank white page or an error about a missing file instead. This means the update itself stopped halfway and left a plugin or theme folder half written. To recover, open wp-content, then plugins, in the file manager and find the plugin you were updating. Rename its folder by adding “-old” to the name. WordPress will deactivate the plugin and the site will load without it. Then reinstall the plugin from the admin. If you were updating a theme, do the same in wp-content, then themes.

It is also worth looking in wp-content, then upgrade. That folder should be empty. If it contains files left over from the failed update, delete them.

• Update one thing at a time. Updating six plugins with one click gives you six chances to hit the thirty-second limit. One at a time takes longer but fails far less often.
• Back up first, and test the backup once. A backup you have never restored may not work when you need it. Hosting backups usually restore the whole account, while a backup plugin restores just the site. Find out which you have and try a restore on a quiet afternoon.
• Update at a quiet time. If something goes wrong at seven on a Sunday morning you have time to fix it. At eleven on a Monday your customers are looking at the error.
• Ask your host about the limits. The time limit and memory limit for PHP are settings, and many hosts will raise them if you ask. That removes the main cause.

On our sites the public website and the WordPress admin are separate systems. Visitors receive pages that were built in advance and stored on a content network, while editors work in WordPress at its own private address. If an update goes wrong, the admin goes into maintenance mode but the public site keeps showing the last published version, and nobody outside the company notices. We should be clear that this is one reason among several to build a site this way, and on its own it would not justify a rebuild. If it has happened to you more than once, though, it is a fair reason to read about how that setup works.

Is it safe to delete the .maintenance file?

Yes. The file contains nothing except a timestamp. Deleting it only removes the lock. If the update underneath was incomplete, the site will tell you with an error, and the rename step above deals with that.

Is this an Xneelo problem?

No. It happens on every shared host because shared hosting limits how long a script may run. Xneelo is simply the host most of our clients use, so it is the one we get asked about. The fix is the same everywhere.

Can I log in to the admin while the site is in maintenance mode?

No. The lock applies to the admin as well, which is why the fix has to be done through the file manager or FTP rather than inside WordPress.

If you would rather not deal with this yourself, updates and tested backups are the first two items on our care plan. You can ask about it through the contact page.