How to fix and prevent a “503 service temporarily unavailable” error

We’ve all been there. Finishing off your masterpiece manuscript on Google Docs. Preparing to launch a new landing page on your website. Scheduling a mass campaign to target your entire email database. And then suddenly, a crash and… “503 service temporarily unavailable” is plastered all over your screen, your hard work seemingly lost forever.

This might just sound like an unfortunate fact of being online – but it doesn’t have to be. Discover 8 things you can do to prevent seeing that dreaded message ever again.

What is a 503 service error?

A 503 service error, also known as an HTTP error 503, indicates that a site’s server is currently unable to handle your request. This could be due to a temporary overload, scheduled maintenance or, in some cases, a serious DDoS attack. 

It’s more likely to occur on a website that’s hosted on a shared server because, as the name suggests, its available capacity and resources must be shared between multiple other sites. But while the problem isn’t likely to last more than a few minutes, this is more than enough time to lose a potential customer’s trust forever.

How can a 503 service error affect your business?

When a 503 service error happens to one person on a one-off occasion, it’s frustrating but not the end of the world. Multiply this effect across your whole customer base, however, and it could cost you more than a single disgruntled tweet…  

• Poor user experience: If users are reporting consistent difficulties accessing a certain section of your website or trying to checkout from your e-commerce store, this is a clear sign that their user experience – something that should be seamless and uninterrupted – is being impacted. 
• Lost revenue: And if this user experience is affected at a potential purchase point, you can bet that they won’t be sticking around to refill their basket. In fact, website errors or crashes lead 13% of shoppers to abandon checkout entirely. 
• Damaged reputation: One crash at checkout could cost you a sale. But what happens when that shopper tells a friend, or worse, leaves a negative review? It’s harder to measure the revenue you never had the opportunity to earn.
• SEO penalties: You might be able to recover your customer’s trust with loyalty programmes and exclusive discounts… but Google will need a lot more convincing. If your website is slow to load, not optimised for mobile, or prone to cyber attacks, you can expect to face significant SEO penalties that will see your website fall down the SERP.

How to fix a 503 service error

Okay, so your site has been affected by a 503 service error. That doesn’t mean you have to hang your head in shame and start writing an apology email. There are still plenty of steps you should be taking to identify (and resolve) the issue in order to get back online quickly…

1. Check your hosting provider’s status

Before diving into any technical troubleshooting, check your service provider’s status to rule out any planned maintenance or disruptions on their end. Fasthosts customers can do this here.

2. Temporarily deactivate your plugins

Plugins are great – but if they’re incompatible with your website, they could be the saboteur behind the service error. Next time you find yourself in the midst of a 503 message, use an FTP client to temporarily disable your existing plugins and then check your dashboard. If the error is gone, hooray! If not, try the next step…

3. Deactivate your website theme

In the same way your plugins might be incompatible with your site, so too could your theme be. Take a similar approach to try and solve this issue by deactivating your website’s current theme and refreshing to see if the problem persists.

4. Temporarily disable your Content Delivery Network (CDN)

CDNs can generally help improve your website’s global performance… or completely crash it, in this case. Luckily, a quick fix here is to disable your CDN and – you guessed it – check if this resolves your 503 service error. If not, back to the drawing board we go.

5. Limit the WordPress “heartbeat” API

If you’re not using WordPress, feel free to disregard this step. But if you are, the very API keeping your site auto-saved could be slowing its heartbeat to a stop. Use an FTP client once again to look for the functions.php file in your site’s backend, then insert the following code to see if it helps:

add_action( 'init', 'stop_heartbeat', 1 ); function stop_heartbeat() { wp_deregister_script('heartbeat'); }

Unlike the other tactics, be sure not to turn off the heartbeat altogether, as it provides a lot of useful website functionality you’ll need once your site is live again.

6. Debug your logs

Had a look at what’s been building up in your error logs recently? If you have a WordPress site this should be relatively easy to do, as you can simply enable WordPress debug mode and let it do the rest. If you don’t have access to that, though, you’ll have to add some code to your wp-config.php file:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true ); define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

7. Optimise your website

Once your website is no longer in immediate danger, it might be time to consider some longer term solutions to reduce the likelihood of future crashes. One such way is to optimise your website to decrease server load and improve overall performance. There are a number of available tools for this, from plugins to CDNs… just make sure they’re compatible with your website before installing.

8. Upgrade your server

If a website crash is becoming a monthly or even weekly occurrence, it’s a clear sign that your server isn’t working hard enough for you. If you’re on a low-cost shared server, it’s probably time to consider an upgrade to a more exclusive VPS – or even a dedicated server if you want to be your host’s sole focus.

You deserve a dedicated server

Now that you’re equipped with the tactics to tackle a 503 service error, seeing that dreaded message pop up should no longer spark fear – only solutions. But if you want to dispel that pesky error altogether, you need to get serious about your server’s capabilities.

When you choose an Intel-powered Dedicated Server from Fasthosts, you’re not only getting full root access, high performance memory, and up to 24 core processors – you’re getting a partner that’s here to help you 24/7. So you can keep your downtime, down. Get in touch with our expert team today.