Learn Drupal 8

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• Last Updated: 03/05/2020
• ( 4 minutes reading )

How to enable and disable Maintenance Mode in Drupal

Introduction

It is always a better idea to display a user-friendly notice, like "Site under maintenance" compared to a broken site during website maintenance. It is not only far more professional but it is also more promising the visitor will be willing to come back and check it later.

With that being said, enabling the Maintenance Mode in Drupal should be your first consideration whenever you are planning to update your website or perform any significant changes that might affect it overall.

When enabled, your website will be accessible only to users granted the required permissions. To all other visitors who attempt to access it, a nice message, indicating you are currently working on your website, will be presented.

 

Maintenance Mode message frontend

 

The notice shown in the screenshot example above is the default Drupal message. We should also let you know that you will be able to customize it and change it to whatever you like.

Now, if you are ready, let us show you how extremely simple it is to enable and respectively disable the Maintenance Mode.

 

Accessing the Maintenance Mode page

Whenever you are ready, please log in to your Drupal Admin Dashboard and navigate through the Administrative toolbar to Manage > Configuration.

Once you access the "Configuration" page, please locate the "Development" block and click on the "Maintenance mode" link within it.

 

Accessing the Maintenance Mode page

 

This action will take you to the "Maintenance mode" page where you will be able to control it.

 

Enabling and Disabling Maintenance Mode

Now that you are located under the intended page, let's first see how to enable the mode.

This could be done as simple as putting a tick into the "Put site into maintenance mode" checkbox and clicking on the "Save configuration" button. Of course, if you would like to customize the message which will be displayed on your website frontend, you will need to enter it into the "Message to display when in maintenance mode" content box. The "@" sign you will notice there represents your "Site name". Also, as you have probably noticed on the first screenshot example the "Site name" is used as a title displayed above the message.

 

Enabling Maintenance Mode

 

Whenever you are ready, please go ahead and double-check if the Maintenance Mode had been successfully enabled. You can do that either by using another browser in which you are not logged into your Drupal account or by using the Incognito Mode on the currently used one.

If the message still does not appear, this could be due to caching, therefore, please refresh the page by ignoring the cached content. Depending on the browser you are using this is achieved as it follows:

Chrome - Shift + f5
Mozilla Firefox - Ctrl + Shift + R
Safari - Cmd + Shift + R
Internet Explorer - Ctrl +f5

Alternatively, you can always manually clear the cache through the browser settings.

Once you confirm everything appears as expected you are all set to start performing the intended changes.

Now, let's see how you will disable the Maintenance Mode once your website is ready to become publicly accessible again.

All you will need to do is to go back to the "Maintenance mode" page, simply untick the checkbox, and hit "Save configuration".

 

Disabling Maintenance Mode

 

Well, that was it! As we promised, it was a really simple task. We believe the information provided in this guide will come in handy while you maintaining your Drupal website in the future. Hopefully, our instructions were clear enough and easy to follow. In case you require any further assistance you can always contact our Support Team which is 24/7 available at your disposal.

 

 

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Sebahat
Content Marketing Specialist

Sebahat is a young and bright woman who has become an invaluable part of our team. She started as a Customer Care Representative, mastering that role and, along the way, growing into a tech-savvy individual who is well acquainted with every support layer of the company. Driven by her aim to improve our customers’ experience constantly, she is committed to enhancing the extraordinary support we deliver.