The “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” error in WordPress error show in WordPress websites when you try to update themes, plugins or core system like WordPress version. WordPress activates maintenance mode to apply updates and create a .maintenance file in the root directory of your website. Once the update is complete, WordPress deactivates maintenance mode and deletes the .maintenance file.
But, sometimes the update process fails due to some issue like slow internet, network issue, theme or plugin issue. In this case, WordPress fails to deactivate the maintenance mode and keep the .maintenance file in the website root directory.
By following the below steps, you can solve this problem.
How to Fix It:
- Log in to your hosting control panel (cPanel).
- You can use File Manager or use an FTP client like FieZilla or others.
- Fint to the root directory of your WordPress installation (public_html for primary domain).
- Look for a file named .maintenance (this is the same directory where wp-config, index.php file exists).
- Sometimes the .maintenance file could be hidden. So, at the right top corner click on the setting and mark the hidden file and save.
- Delete this file named .maintenance.
- Reload your website and check if the issue is resolved.
Verify Updates:
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- Ensure all updates were completed successfully. If not, retry the updates.
Before update your website:
- Make sure that you have a stable internet connection.
- Do not update multiple items at a time, update items one by one.
- Before updating anything, keep a backup file.
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