Website down? We help you fast
Website down with a 500 error, blank page, DNS failure or hosting crash? We identify the cause and get your website back online — usually within 1–3 hours.
Website down — what is actually happening?
When a website is down the server is either offline, returning an error, or the domain is not resolving. The faster the cause is identified, the faster the site is back online. We have handled thousands of cases since 2002 and recognize most patterns within minutes.
A site-down event typically falls into one of five categories: hosting infrastructure failure, DNS or domain issue, application crash (often WordPress), expired SSL certificate, or a hack/DDoS attack. This page walks you through how to identify which category you are in — and what to do next.
In a hurry? Do this:
- Call 08-446 00 88 — we answer within 30 minutes on weekdays 9–17.
- Have hosting login and domain registrar credentials ready.
- Note any recent change — update, deploy, plugin install, payment.
- Do not start poking at .htaccess or wp-config — wait for diagnosis.
Most common reasons a website is down
When a website is down the cause is almost always one of these. We fix all of them.
Web host or server is down
The hosting provider has an outage, the server is overloaded, or disk space is full. Check your host's status page first. We diagnose and resolve with your host or migrate to our Swedish hosting with 99.9% uptime.
500 Internal Server Error
Apache or PHP fatal error, broken .htaccess rule, exceeded memory limit, or a corrupt plugin file. The cause is in the error log — we read it and fix the root cause, not just the symptom.
DNS failure or expired domain
Domain not resolving, wrong A/CNAME records, or the domain registration has expired. DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN is the classic browser symptom. We verify with dig/nslookup and restore correct records.
Hacked or DDoS attack
The site has been compromised and suspended by the host, or is under a denial-of-service attack. We clean, restore and protect with WF SecurityCloud™ to prevent recurrence.
Expired SSL certificate
Browsers block access with "your connection is not private" when the SSL certificate has expired. Renewal via Let's Encrypt takes minutes — see our SSL certificate help.
WordPress crash after update
A plugin, theme or core update has caused a fatal error. White Screen of Death, "There has been a critical error" or database errors. See our WordPress troubleshooting for details.
Quick diagnostics in 5 minutes — check this first
Five steps to confirm whether the website is really down — and where the problem is.
Reach the site from another device or network
Try mobile data, a VPN, or downforeveryoneorjustme.com. If the site loads from another network the problem is local — DNS cache, ISP route, or browser cache. Clear cache, flush DNS (ipconfig /flushdns or sudo dscacheutil -flushcache).
Verify DNS resolution
Run nslookup yourdomain.com or use dnschecker.org. If DNS does not resolve the issue is at the registrar or DNS provider — domain expired, wrong nameservers, or stale records. Most expired-domain cases resolve within minutes after renewal.
Check HTTP status code
Run curl -I https://yourdomain.com from terminal, or use httpstatus.io. A 500 means application crash, 502/504 means upstream/proxy timeout, 503 means scheduled maintenance or rate limit, 200 means the server actually responds — then the issue is in HTML/JS rendering.
Check the hosting provider status page
Most hosts publish a status page (status.loopia.se, status.binero.se, etc.). If the host has an active incident you only need to wait — there is nothing you can do at the application level. Subscribe to status updates if available.
Read the error log if you have access
In cPanel, Plesk or via SSH: tail -n 100 /var/log/apache2/error.log or look at the PHP error log. The actual reason for a 500 error is almost always written there in plain text — file path, line number, fatal error message. This is what we check first.
HTTP error codes and what they mean
When a website is down the error code in the browser tells you exactly where the problem is.
500 Internal Server Error
The server received the request but the application crashed. PHP fatal error, broken .htaccess, plugin conflict or exceeded memory limit. The cause is in the error log — fix is usually disabling the offending plugin or fixing a syntax error.
502 Bad Gateway
Reverse proxy (nginx, Cloudflare) cannot reach the upstream server. PHP-FPM has crashed, the application is overloaded, or the backend is down. Restart PHP-FPM and check resource usage — usually fixed within minutes.
503 Service Unavailable
Server is up but cannot handle the request — scheduled maintenance, rate limiting or DDoS protection kicked in. WordPress shows this during automatic updates. Usually clears on its own within minutes.
504 Gateway Timeout
Backend took too long to respond. Slow database query, locked table, external API hanging, or PHP script exceeding execution time. Identify the slow query and add an index or cache the result.
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN
Browser cannot find an IP for the domain. Domain expired, nameservers misconfigured, or DNS records deleted. Check whois.com for expiration, dnschecker.org for global propagation.
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
Server actively rejects the connection. Web server (Apache/nginx) is stopped, port 80/443 is firewalled, or the server is completely offline. Check via SSH or hosting panel and restart the service.
WordPress-specific problems
WordPress sites go down for very specific, recognizable reasons. Here are the four most common.
White Screen of Death (WSOD)
Completely blank page — a fatal PHP error has crashed before any output. Enable WP_DEBUG in wp-config.php, then read the error in /wp-content/debug.log. Almost always a plugin or theme. Rename the plugin folder via FTP/SFTP to disable it temporarily.
Error establishing a database connection
WordPress cannot connect to MySQL. Wrong DB_HOST/DB_USER/DB_PASSWORD in wp-config.php, MySQL service down, or database corrupted. Verify credentials, then run "WordPress repair" by setting WP_ALLOW_REPAIR in wp-config.php and visiting /wp-admin/maint/repair.php.
Plugin conflict after update
Site worked yesterday, broke after auto-update. Disable all plugins (rename /wp-content/plugins to plugins-old via FTP) — if site comes back, re-enable plugins one by one to identify the culprit. Then either roll back the plugin or wait for a fix.
Memory limit exhausted
"Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted" in error log. Increase PHP memory limit in wp-config.php (define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');) or in php.ini. If memory keeps running out the real issue is usually a poorly written plugin doing heavy queries.
What Webbfabriken does when your website is down
A clear, four-stage process — from first call to written post-mortem.
1. Diagnosis within 30 minutes
We answer the phone, take credentials securely, run DNS/HTTP/error-log checks and identify the root cause. You get a clear status report with expected fix time before we start work.
2. Recovery and restore
We fix the immediate cause: roll back the bad update, restore from backup, fix the broken file, renew the SSL certificate, or clean malware. Most websites are back online within 1–3 hours.
3. Temporary 503 maintenance page
For lengthy recoveries we put up a friendly maintenance page with your branding so visitors are not greeted by a raw error. The 503 status code also tells Google to come back later — protecting SEO.
4. Post-mortem report
After every incident you get a written report: what happened, root cause, what we did, how long it took, and concrete recommendations to prevent recurrence. No vague invoices.
Prevention — how to avoid the website going down again
Most outages are preventable. Five concrete measures that catch 90% of the cases we see.
Continuous monitoring
Managed hosting with uptime monitoring catches problems before users do. We check HTTP status, response time, SSL expiry, and disk usage every minute. Alarms go directly to our on-call engineer.
Daily backups with one-click restore
A daily off-site backup means worst-case downtime is 24 hours of data loss instead of total loss. We test restores quarterly so the backup actually works the day you need it — surprisingly many providers do not.
Scheduled WordPress updates
Auto-updates break sites in production. We update on a staging environment first, run smoke tests, then deploy to production during a maintenance window. Zero "we updated overnight and now it is down" calls.
Automatic SSL renewal
Let's Encrypt certificates renew every 90 days. With certbot or our hosting platform this happens automatically — no expired-cert outages. We also alert 14 days before expiry as a safety net.
WF SecurityCloud protection
WAF and DDoS protection block the attacks that take websites down. We see thousands of attempts per day across our customer base — almost all of them stopped automatically before they reach origin.
Price and response time for emergency help
Transparent pricing — no surprise bills when the website is down.
Office hours emergency
595 SEK/hour, Mon–Fri 9–17. Phone answer within 30 minutes. Most recoveries take 1–3 hours, so the typical bill is 600–1800 SEK. We confirm scope before starting work.
Off-hours and weekends
Evenings, nights, weekends and public holidays are priced individually based on urgency. Existing service-agreement customers get prioritized response times around the clock.
Service agreement (SLA)
Fixed monthly fee with guaranteed response time, included monitoring, daily backups and X hours of recovery work per month. Often pays for itself the first time the website is down.
Typical recovery time
Expired domain or SSL: 30–60 minutes. Plugin/theme conflict: 1–2 hours. Server crash with backup restore: 2–3 hours. Hacked site that needs cleanup: half a day to a full day. We always give an estimate up front.
FAQ — when your website is down
The questions we get most often when a customer calls about a site that is down.
My website is down right now — what should I do first?
First, verify the site is actually down for everyone (test from mobile data or downforeveryoneorjustme.com). If it is down, call us on 08-446 00 88. We start diagnostics within 30 minutes during office hours and most websites are back online within 1–3 hours.
What does a 500 Internal Server Error mean?
A 500 error means the server received the request but something inside the application crashed. The most common causes are PHP fatal errors, broken .htaccess rules, exceeded memory limits, or corrupted plugin files. The actual cause is logged in the server error log.
My WordPress site shows a white screen — is the site down?
Yes, the WordPress White Screen of Death is a fatal PHP error that crashes the page before anything renders. Most often it is caused by a plugin update, a theme conflict, or exhausted PHP memory. We fix it by enabling debug logging, identifying the offending plugin and rolling back to a working state.
How long does it take to get a website back online?
Simple issues (expired domain, expired SSL, single broken plugin) are usually fixed within 30–60 minutes. Server crashes or full site recovery from backup typically take 1–3 hours. Hacked sites that need cleanup take longer — usually half a day to a full day.
What does emergency website recovery cost?
Our emergency rate is 595 SEK/hour during office hours (Mon–Fri 9–17). Off-hours and weekend recovery is priced separately based on urgency. Most recoveries take 1–3 hours, so the typical bill lands between 600–1800 SEK. We always confirm scope before starting.
Can you prevent the website from going down again?
Yes. We offer managed hosting with 24/7 monitoring, daily backups, automatic SSL renewal, and proactive WordPress updates. Combined with WF SecurityCloud, this prevents the vast majority of incidents that take websites down.
Need emergency help right now? Call 08-446 00 88
When your website is down every minute counts. We answer within 30 minutes on weekdays 9–17 and most websites are back online within 1–3 hours.
Describe the issue and we will get back quickly
Send what happened, what is affected and how urgent the situation is.