Have you updated a plugin or theme and found yourself stuck in ‘Maintenance Mode’? If so, don’t worry, because there’s a very quick fix.
Maintenance Mode is WordPress’s way of keeping things straight while it performs an update, and simply prevents any changes to your website while the files and database are being modified. Tf you trigger maintenance mode by updating a plugin or theme, it will exit maintenance mode once that operation is complete. However, should something go wrong and the update operation is not completed for some reason, the website will stay in maintenance mode and you won’t be able to log back in or use the website until it’s turned off.
The way to resolve is is simple, and all you need is FTP access to the website (if you don’t have this, ask your hosting provider). Just login to the top directory of your website (usually htdocs or public_html) and you will see a file called .maintenance – just delete this file, and you’re sorted.
Once everything’s back up and running you should re-run the update to make sure it goes properly – if it fails a second time however, remove the .maintenance file but don’t try updating again just yet, come back after a few hours to try again. If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to contact the plugin/theme developer for assistance.
