I just wanted to share a quick tip from a problem I recently encountered.  The problem was that after updating a handful of plugins through the WordPress dashboard, the site got stuck in ‘maintenance mode’ and would only display the following message on the site:

Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.

Luckily there’s an easy solution.  The issue first occurred when after initiating the plugin updates, I accidentally clicked on another link in the dashboard before the updates were done installing.  In short, I refreshed the page before maintenance mode had been disabled.  After a few minutes of refreshing the page, I realized that the problem was not going to correct itself.

When you update a plugin or the WordPress platform itself, the site temporarily goes into maintenance mode while this is occurring.  It executes this by first creating a ‘.maintenance’ file on your server.  When the updates complete, this file is simply deleted.  So in order to solve this problem, you need to go into your root directory and delete the ‘.maintenance’ file.  If you use a hosting package such as Hostgator, simply visit the file manager of your cpanel (with the option to show hidden files checked) and find the file.  Delete it and you’re done.

Special thanks to Zachgraeve.com for first posting the solution here.