HTTP 503 Error (And How To Fix It)

HTTP error 503 is the error given when the server is unavailable. The technically correct name is “HTTP error 503: Service Unavailable” but different websites call it different things. This error may also be called “HTTP/1.1 Error” or “DNS Failure”.

What does this error mean?

This error is shown when the server is unreachable at the time of request (Otherwise known as the time you tried to load the website). Since the HTTP 503 error begins with the number 5, that means it’s a server error, so the likelihood that you will be able to fix it from your computer is minimal. Don’t worry, as there are still a few things that you can check!

How do I fix this error? - A guide for website visitors

Are you the owner of the website? If so, scroll down!

Refresh. This should always be the first thing you try when an error occurs on a website. Try a hard refresh with ctrl+F5 if you wish (It won’t do any harm, promise)!
!IMPORTANT! - If you get this error while submitting an online order, take care not to submit your order multiple times! While many websites and companies have taken measures to protect against this, but it can (And does) still happen!
Try again later. Coming back to the site at a later time may be the answer. The administrators of the website may be actively working to fix the issue, or it may just be temporary outage.
Ask for help. If you are still stuck, try asking the owner of the website for some assistance, and make sure that they are aware of the issue.

How do I fix this error? - A guide for website owners

Are you a visitor of the website? If so, scroll up!
Is your WordPress blog (Or any site really) throwing this error? Try making sure that everything is active and running (Perhaps restarting the server if you can). Also, check to make sure that you have not hit any limits, and that your webserver is still online and reachable. 503 errors can also come from having too much traffic at once for the server to handle, whether that be good traffic (Awesome visitors) or bad traffic (Such as bots or a DDoS attack). Lastly, contacting your hosting provider if you have one for help is also an amazing option.

Final Summary

Hopefully you learned about this error and how to solve it! If you found an error, or want to add something, please let us know! Have an amazing day, and don’t let these errors bring you down!