How to Fix 503 Service Unavailable Error in WordPress

Ninetheme

You may receive Service Unavailable error 503 in WordPress but no need to wory about it at all. There is a solution for everything in WordPress.It’s annoying problem for beginners to WordPress because there is not much information about why and how this error appearred. So, in this article, we’re going to mention about how to solve the 503 Servie Unavailable Errorin WordPress.

What Causes 503 Service Unavailable Error in WordPress?

First, you should know that all wordpress hosting companies offer a certain amount of resources for each hosting account. For websites on shared hosting, this limit may not meet the heavy use of server resources. In general, this error occurs when your web server does not receive a proper response from a PHP script.

This PHP script we’re talking about can be a plugin, theme or a custom piece of code that works incorrectly. If the error is caused by heavy usage, server failure or DDOS attacks, you can get rid of it automatically within a couple of minutes.

However, if it is caused by a buggy code, the problem will not be solved unless you find and correct that buggy code or disable it. Now let’s show you how you can fix this error easily in a few steps.

Fixing 503 Service Unavailable Error in WordPress

As we mentioned above, you might get this error when your web server does not receive a proper response from a PHP script running in the background.

To fix the error, we will disable all PHP scripts that work unnecessarily one by one.

Disable All of Your Plugins

All WordPress plugins are an example of PHP scripts. So firstly, disable all of your plugins.

Connect to your server, where your theme files are being stored using an FTP client or File Manager in cPanel, as you can’t log in to your wordpress dashboard with error 503. After you connected to your server, navigate to the wp-content folder and rename the plugins folder to ” plugins-old “.

Then create a new folder and name it as ” plugins “. Now visit your WordPress site to see if this resolves the issue. If the problem is resolved, it is one of the plugins that causes you to get this error.

Go back to your FTP client or File Manager in cPanel again to find out which plugin is causing this. Then go to your wp-content folder and delete the empty plugins folder which is there.

After this process, you need to re-change the plugins file’s name from ” plugins-old ” to ” plugins “. This way, all of your plugins will be ready to use but need to be actived. 

Log into your WordPress panel and navigate to Dashboard > Plugins.  You can visit your site over and over as you activate each plugin untill the find out the buggy plugin which cause this problem.

If you have already solved your problem by following this step, there is no longer need to read and follow the remaining steps provided below. However, if still not resolved, you need to keep moving.

Switch To A Default WordPress Theme

If the above step didn’t solve your problem, the next step you need to do is switch to a default WordPress theme. This will disable your existing WordPress theme.

You need to connect to your server using an FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. After connected, navigate to wp-contents > themes

You need to make sure to have a back up of your main theme in advance just in case. Then, review your website to see if the issue is resolved or not.

Ask Your Hosting Company

If neither method has solved your problem, contact your WordPress hosting company. If still not reolved, you need to make a clean installation of WordPress.

We hope that you have solved your 503 Service Unavailable Error problem with this article. We’d love to hear from you if you think this article is usefull.