My website is down — first checks
Work through these in order before panicking. Most "site down" reports turn out to be one of five things.
Take a breath — genuine server outages are rare, and the common causes are quick to identify. Work down this list in order; each check rules out a whole category of problem.
The five checks
Is it down for everyone, or just you?
Try loading your site on your phone with wifi off, using mobile data. If it loads there, your site is fine — the problem is your own network, browser cache or DNS. Restart your router and clear your browser cache.
What exactly does the error say?
The message tells you where the fault is, and this is the most useful thing you can send us:
See 500 and 403 errors explained for the detail on each.
Has the domain expired?
An expired domain takes the whole site and email down instantly, and it happens more often than anyone admits. Log in to the client portal and check the domain's expiry date and your invoice list. An unpaid renewal is a five-minute fix.
Did anything change recently?
Websites rarely break by themselves. Did you or anyone else update a plugin or theme, install something new, edit code, or change DNS in the last day or two? If so, that is almost certainly your culprit — and a backup restore is the fastest way back.
Check your account is active
Log in to the client portal and confirm your hosting shows as Active rather than Suspended. Suspension is almost always an overdue invoice, and paying it restores service quickly.
Still down after all five?
Email support@mediafortress.com.au and include:
- Your domain name
- The exact error message (a screenshot is perfect)
- When it last worked, and anything that changed around then
- Whether it fails on mobile data too
That information usually lets us find the cause on the first look rather than trading emails.
How to make the next one less painful
- Keep your own backup. Our backups are for disaster recovery; your own copy is what makes a bad day a ten-minute fix. See Downloading a full backup.
- Turn on auto-renew for your domain and hosting so an expiry can never take you offline.
- Consider a maintenance plan if updates make you nervous — we apply them, test them, and hold the backups.
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