Website is down

Question

A website is down. HELP!

Answer

There are many reasons why a website is down or is perceived to be down. These are some examples:

• Someone has changed the DNS entries or changed the NS records
• The domain name has expired
• The NS records have changed away from Staq when Staq Next-Gen CDN is enabled, then the NS records change elsewhere but are then brought back to Staq (in this case, you have to delete Staq Next-Gen CDN and then re-enable it)
• If you’re using Cloudflare as the DNS, make sure the proxy/alias feature is disabled unless you apply the Staq-Cloudflare integration for you to enable proxy. See below.
• ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS (displayed in the browser)
• 503 Server Error (perceived to be down but Staq Firewall has blocked your IP address or someone’s IP address)
• Plugin/Theme issue

DNS/NS change

To confirm a DNS change, go to MX Toolbox, select DNS Lookup, and enter the domain name. Is the A record correct?

To confirm an NS record change, go to MX Toolbox and select DNS Check. Does the NS record still point to Staq (AWS records) or to your expected NS records?

Expired Domain Name

If you had checked the DNS records first and no records appeared, the domain name may have expired.

To confirm if a domain name has expired, see the appropriate service to check the status of the domain name:

• Australian domain name check – https://whois.auda.org.au/
• .com, .net and others – https://whois.godaddy.com/
• If the above two do not assist, Google whois domain name <domain ccTLD> i.e. whois domain name .co.il

From there, you can assess to see if the domain name is valid or has expired.

Cloudflare Proxy

Staq supports Cloudflare proxy, including seamless SSL generation and auto-renewal AS LONG AS you integrate the Cloudflare API into Staq.

Failure to do so, if you’re using Cloudflare as the DNS service, in order for the SSL certificate to generate or renew, you’ll have to ensure that your records i.e. the non-www and www records have the proxy status disabled:

If you need the DNS to be proxied, you can follow this guide on how to proxy the A records on Cloudflare.

ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS

In Chrome, you may see this error ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS

In Safari, you may see Too many redirects occurred trying to open …

To fix the too many redirects issue, below are some scenarios that you can investigate in order to remedy the issue.

This can be caused from:

• adding a sequence of 301 redirects i.e. /old-page —> new-page, then redirecting new-page —>different-page
• plugin/theme goes into an infinite loop
• AAAA records in the DNS exist.

If you’re using a redirect plugin but cannot access the WordPress backend, follow this guide on how to force the deactivation of a theme/plugin

If you’ve followed the guide to set up server 301 redirects inside Staq Panel, then you can delete the record that you’ve recently created.

If none of the above apply, go to a tool like MX Tool Box and select the AAAA option and enter your domain. If AAA records appear, then have them removed/deleted. This will fix the ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS issue.

503 Error

A 503 error relates to being blocked by the Staq Firewall. This is the guide on how to unban the IP address

Plugin/Theme Issue

To debug the problematic plugin, follow this guide on how to debug the WordPress issue.

PHP Workers Reaching Maximum Levels

If your website is down, one potential cause could be PHP Workers hitting their maximum levels. This issue often manifests as different server errors depending on the setup:

• Nginx: Errors such as 502 Bad Gateway or 504 Gateway Timeout appear when the server cannot process additional PHP requests due to all workers being in use.
• Cloudflare: Errors like 520 Web Server Returned an Unknown Error, 521 Web Server Is Down, or 524 A Timeout Occurred may occur, indicating that the origin server is unresponsive or taking too long to process requests.
• CloudFront: Errors such as 503 Service Unavailable or 504 Gateway Timeout indicate that the origin server (Nginx) is not responding promptly.

To diagnose and resolve this, you can assess your PHP Worker usage via the Staq Panel for the site. For step-by-step instructions, see our guide: Assessing Memory and PHP Worker Resources.

By analyzing the metrics, you can determine whether an increase in PHP Workers or optimization of your website is necessary to resolve the issue.