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Quickly Fix Error 503 Service Unavailable in WordPress

Error 503 is one of the most common errors to come up in websites made in WordPress especially, if it is a built with Woo-commerce. Fixing it is super easy even for non technicals users. So, lets dive in and understand all about it.

Error Code: 503 Service Unavailable – The server is temporarily busy, try again later.


What is Error 503

  • This is a server end error response code which indicates that the server is not ready to handle the request. There can be various reasons for this. A professional wordpress developer or your wordpress hosting provider would be the best one to help you understand this better.

Causes of Error 503

  • One of the primary cause of error 503 service unavailable is that the your wordpress is not getting enough memory to run the kind of plugins or functionality installed on your website. Visit this page to know how to increase memory limit in WordPress by code.

How to fix Error 503

You can quick fix error 503 in wordpress by a simple code which works flawless.

  • Login to cPanel (Ask your hosting provider to know how to login in cPanel)
  • Look for ‘File Manager’ and open it by double clicking on the folder name.
  • Locate a File which is named as ‘wp-config.php’
  • Edit the file by right clicking on it and then selecting Edit tab.
  • Copy & paste the below code at the bottom of the file and click on save.
define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
  • That’s it – its done.

Visit your website and wordpress dashboard, the error should have disappeared by now. Congratulations you have just now fixed the most common error for WordPress.


Important Note:

  • You can change the 256M to 512M or even 1024M depending upon your hosting accounts RAM limit.
  • Make sure not to increase the memory limit to the maximum of 50% of the hosting’s Memory limit.
  • Ask your hosting provider to confirm the memory / RAM allocated for your hosting account to avoid further errors or slow performance.