Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance

What’s actually happening

Every page — front end and wp-admin — shows this single line and nothing else. WordPress drops a hidden file named .maintenance into the site root at the start of any core, plugin, or theme update and deletes it when the update finishes. If the update dies partway (timeout, low disk, you closed the tab), that file never gets removed and the site stays stuck. WordPress only honors it for 10 minutes from the file's timestamp, so sometimes it clears on its own — but a botched update often leaves a stale or future-dated file that hangs the site indefinitely.

Common causes

• A core/plugin/theme update interrupted by a PHP max_execution_time timeout before it could finish
• The browser tab closed or the connection dropped mid-update, so the cleanup step never ran
• The server ran out of disk space (or hit a quota) while unpacking the update
• Bulk-updating many plugins at once, where one stalls and the whole batch leaves .maintenance behind
• A fatal PHP error during the upgrade routine that aborted before WordPress could delete the file

How to fix it

1. Delete the .maintenance fileConnect via SFTP/SSH or your host's File Manager (cPanel) and open the site root — the folder that contains wp-admin, wp-includes, and wp-config.php. Delete the file named .maintenance (note the leading dot; enable "show hidden files" if you do not see it). The site comes back the instant it is gone.
2. Finish the update that was interruptedDeleting the file unblocks the site but the update may be half-applied. Log into wp-admin and re-run it from Dashboard -> Updates. If a specific plugin/theme was mid-update, update it again so its files are consistent.
3. Confirm nothing is half-installedSpot-check the plugin or theme that was updating. If its files look incomplete or it errors, delete and reinstall a fresh copy. A partial update can otherwise surface later as a fatal error (the "critical error" page).
4. Fix what made the update failIf it timed out, raise PHP max_execution_time/memory_limit or update fewer items at once. If the disk was full, clear space. Then retry — otherwise the next update will strand the same .maintenance file again.