Maintenance mode 📝 WordPress

WordPress: Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.

An update was interrupted and WordPress left its .maintenance file behind, so the site stays in maintenance mode.

Seen on: WordPress

Meaning

During core/plugin/theme updates WordPress creates .maintenance in the site root and deletes it afterwards. If the update times out or you close the tab, the file remains.

Common causes

  • Update interrupted (timeout, closed browser, server limits)
  • Bulk-updating many plugins on a slow host
  • Update failed halfway due to permissions or disk space

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Delete .maintenance from the WordPress root (FTP / File Manager — enable “show hidden files”)
  2. Re-run the update that was interrupted
  3. Update plugins in smaller groups

Detailed fix by platform

WordPress

  1. Via SSH / WP-CLI:
    bash
    cd /var/www/html && rm -f .maintenance
wp core verify-checksums
wp plugin update --all --dry-run

How to diagnose

  1. File — Does .maintenance exist in the root?
  2. Update — Which update was interrupted — is it complete?

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