Recently, when I tried to update one of my WordPress websites using the automatic update option available in WordPress, my website has gone into Maintenance mode and it just keeps showing the “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.” message. Since this was the first time I have seen this message, I wasn’t sure what to do.
So, I Googled and found plenty of people experiencing the same issue and only few has found a solution. That’s why I have decided the share the solution which has helped me to fix the WordPress maintenance mode issue here in this page. Just follow the steps given and fix the Maintenance mode issue completely.
Fix Briefly Unavailable For Scheduled Maintenance WordPress Issue

Tutorial To Fix WordPress Maintenance Mode Issue:

1) To get started, download and install a FTP client in your computer (In my case, I have used FileZilla). Once installed, open up the FTP client, enter the log in details of the web hosting server where your WordPress site is located and connect with it.
FileZilla Connected With WordPress Site Server
2) Now, go to the “Server” option in FileZilla FTP client and enable “Force Show Hidden Files“. On other FTP clients, the options will be little bit different but I am sure that you will be able to figure it out quite easily.
Force Show Hidden Files Filezilla
3) Once done, click on “public_html” to access the root folder of your WordPress website.
Access WordPress Root Folder Public HTML
4) Now, look for “.maintenance” file in the root folder. Most of the times, it will be located next to the “.htaccess” file. Once you have found it, just delete it from the server.
WordPress Maintenance File In Root Folder
That’s it. Now you will be able to access your WordPress website without any issues at all. If in case that this tutorial wouldn’t help you to resolve your issue, just drop in a comment below. I will provide an alternative solution.

About .maintenance In WordPress:

Whenever you try to update the WordPress core files or a WordPress plugin or a WordPress theme, WordPress will automatically create a .maintenance file and place it temporarily on the server, so that if someone tries to visit your website while the updating process is going on, they will see the message “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”
Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.
Most of the times, WordPress deletes this file from the server when the updating process gets finished and your website will load properly. But in some rare cases, WordPress won’t remove the .maintenance file and when that happens, you will keep on seeing the above message continuously. During those times, you can follow the tutorial given in this page to solve the WordPress Maintenance issue.