Fix WordPress Maintenance Mode by deleting the .maintenance file on your server.

When you update plugins in WordPress, it goes into maintenance mode. Sometimes WordPress gets stuck in maintenance mode and you’ll see this message when loading your website. “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” What has happened is the .maintenance file that WordPress automatically creates and then deletes during updates has gotten stuck on your WordPress hosting server. The file is located in the root directory of your WordPress installation.

Fortunately this is not a big problem and is very easy to fix. You only need to delete the .maintenance file from your server.

You will need FTP access to your WordPress server. If you don’t have FTP access to your WordPress website, now is a good time to set that up!

If you already have FTP access, just open your FTP program and login to the server. In the main WordPress directory you will see the .maintenance file, delete it and you’re done. Have a nice day.

If you don’t have FTP access you need a couple things to get setup.

• FTP credentials. You need the FTP username and password for your server. This is different from your WordPress login credentials. You can find this information in our Managed WordPress Hosting accounts in the settings area. In the settings area you will see all the details you need to setup your FTP client.

• FTP Software. You need an program to access FTP on your server, we use the free FTP client FileZilla

When you have everything ready for FTP access, login to the server through your FTP client and delete the .maintenance file.