What does 503 Service Unavailable mean: The 503 Service Unavailable error code is one of the most common error codes faced by the users. If you receive 503 Service Unavailable code then it means that a web server you are trying to connect is unavailable. HTTP Error Code 503 is a server-side error and has nothing to with your PC. That’s both good and bad news. It’s good news because there’s nothing wrong with your personal computer, and it’s bad news because there’s usually nothing you can do to solve the problem from your side.
This error can show up in numerous forms. You must be able to recognize it no matter what avatar it shows up in. Here is a list of some of the examples of the 503 error code forms:
- 503 error.
- 503 Service Unavailable.
- Error 503 Service Unavailable.
- 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable.
- HTTP 503.
- HTTP Error 503.
- HTTP Server Error 503.
- Service Unavailable – DNS Failure.
- HTTP/1.1 Service is unavailable.
What causes the appearance of the 503 Error code?
As mentioned earlier the 503 Service Unavailable message generally shows up when a website server is currently unable to handle a request by clients. There are mainly three reasons behind this.
The most common cause is that the website could be under maintenance. Most of the time, the server could just be fixing some bugs, updating, baking up which is why it is not connected to the internet, and hence, the service is unavailable.
Another thing invoking the 503 error code to display is a spike in traffic that the server can’t handle. The server could be overloaded and struggling with the number of requests it is receiving. This could also be the product of a DoS attack or a misconfiguration of a web application.
This case is very unlikely but this could be the output of a wrong DNS server configuration on the client-side. The DNS server may itself have issues resulting in a “service unavailable” message. I know we said it clearly that it was a server-side error and we still stick to that statement. The 503 error is a server-side error but the DNS problem could lead to this message being displayed even when this is not the case.
We have finally reached the topic you are eager to see, how to fix this glitch. Let’s dig in.
1)Refresh:
Most of the time this issue is only temporary and will disappear as soon as you refresh. You can refresh by click on the refresh button at the top right of your screen, press “F5” or “Ctrl+R”. You can also enter the URL again.
2)Restart your device and router/modem:
We specified earlier how a fault in DNS server configuration could cause this error message to pop up. You can solve this by restarting your device, router, and modem.
3) Come back later:
Apart from the DNS server and in case of maintenance, we had also cited that the server could be overloaded. This happens when there a lot of visitors(That’s you!) and the server can’t handle it and you trying to access the website is contributing to this problem. In this case, the best you can do is leave the site, wait and finally come back later hoping for the problem to have gone.
4) Contact the Website:
If non of the solutions are working you need to accept the fact that there is nothing wrong with your device and there is nothing you can do to fix it. The website administrators have more authority and control over the website than you so it would be a good idea to contact the website owners and letting them know about this problem. There’s a good chance that they will be able to fix the problem.