Workaround when you can’t access .maintenance?

Website is stuck in maintenance mode

we can’t find any way to enable viewing hidden files so there is no way to see .maintenance at all.

The .maintenance file is only a temporary file. If the file is used, either manually by the user or automatically by WP, to put a site under maintenance mode, it will only work for no longer than 10 minutes with its default behavior.

So the fact that the site is stuck in maintenance mode means that you’ve modified one or more files on the site so it can be in maintenance mode perpetually?

Can you confirm if you’ve modified the files?

wp_is_maintenance_mode()
https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-includes/load.php

No files were modified. We were trying to do a plug-in update which never finished. Thus why it was still stuck.

If you’re sure it’s the .maintenance file causing the problem and there is no other way to delete such file on your end.

You probably want to file a support ticket with your web host and ask them to delete this file for you. From their side of the file system, the sys admin can see and perform operations with hidden files that normal users can’t.

I tried that too and support said they need 3-5 days to look into it. :/ Thus trying to find an option ourselves.

Looking at the load file you linked though, it looks different than the one the website has.

Looking at the load file you linked though, it looks different than the one the website has.

The loader.php file linked above is the latest dev version (not yet released), so it naturally can be different than the same file already released.

With this said, does the loader.php file on your site has these lines at around line 310?

// If the $upgrading timestamp is older than 10 minutes, consider maintenance over.
	if ( ( time() - $upgrading ) >= 10 * MINUTE_IN_SECONDS ) {
		return false;
	}

1.)
I’ve thought of something that might help.

The “Rollback Update Failure” plug-in.
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/rollback-update-failure/

It’s a featured plug-in and the functionality is actually being discussed to be integrated into WordPress itself.

Install this once you’ve your site recovered, which could prevent the same thing from happening again.

2.)
I assume at this point you may already have your site recovered by your web host.

If so, it’s a good practice to mark this topic as “Resolved” per forum guidelines.

You can do this using the “Status” drop-down menu located on the right sidebar of this page.

In addition, this can help out other users.

Thanks.