Fix service unavailable error for WordPress websites quickly and easily without a developer
If you keep getting the message ’The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later’.
If you are getting a service unavailable message when trying to load pages on the website or perform admin tasks then this tutorial is for you.
Connect to your WordPress website using FTP/SFTP or SSH. Whichever you usually use. If I have lost you here already, then go to your admin panel and to the plugins section you can download ‘File Manager’.
Find the wp-config.php file in the root of your website and make a backup of it. We aren’t really doing anything to taxing but you have piece of mind that the working file is still there to revert back to, should you need it.
Now open the file in a code editor and add the line of code below, above this bit of text ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’ Its on around line 80 if opened the file in a code editor.
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’,’256M’);
This is recommmended if you use the Woocommerce plugin. You can increase this to more but this should resolve the issue.
Why is this happening?
It is essentially a lack of memory on your server. This could be linked to the theme you use, plugins you have running, inefficient or conflicting scripts. It can even be as simple as the content on your website like photos and video.
You need to try to optimise your website as well as possible, your users will thank you for it and it will actually improve your organic search rankings a little.
I will be doing a video series on optimising WordPress websites, so if this is of interest to you then make sure to subscribe to my Youtube channel to receive notifications when the course goes live.
Still recieving the error?
There are other factors that could be causing this error but this is often a quick and easy non-developer fix. If you hate doing this kind of stuff then you can also just hire me to help you out as a freelance WordPress developer.
