Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode: questions and answers

1. I activated it and nothing happenedThat is deliberate.
2. I can see my site but my visitors say they cannotThat is it working.
3. Am I locked out of wp-admin?No.
4. People are signing up while my site is in coming soon modeNot any more.
5. Does maintenance mode hurt my search rankings?Not if you pick Maintenance: Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode then answers 503 with a Retry-After header, which tells a crawler to come back later.
6. Visitors see "Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance" during updatesThat is WordPress's own message.
7. The update page says maintenance.php belongs to something elseAnother plugin, or your host, has put its own wp-content/maintenance.php in place.
8. The update page says maintenance.php is missingThe file was deleted, by hand or by a clean-up tool.
9. The update page is switched off, but updates still show itThe panel says wp-content/maintenance.php could not be changed.
10. The update page says WordPress will not let it write to wp-contentYour host keeps wp-content read-only for the web server, which some managed hosts do on purpose, or DISALLOW_FILE_MODS is set in wp-config.php.
11. How do I show the site to a client?Access → Preview Links, at the foot of the screen.
12. A client says their preview link stopped workingFind their link under Access → Preview Links.
13. Members I let in by their role cannot find where to sign inSwitch on Show a Sign in link on the page, under the roles on the Access screen.
14. Can a whole office see the site?Yes.
15. Can I keep one page open?Yes.
16. I set a switch-on time and nothing happenedSettings → Switch on at only takes effect once the mode is enabled.
17. The countdown is not showingThree things switch it off, and the screen says which: No switch-off time is set. That is Switch off at, under Settings → Schedule. The switch-off time has already passed. The…
18. The countdown reached zero and the mode is still onSettings → Switch off automatically at that time is switched off.
19. I changed my site's time zone after setting the timesThe Switch on at and Switch off at times are kept as you typed them and read in the time zone your site has now, under Settings → General.
20. I pressed Enable or Disable and it says nothing was changedThe mode was already the way the button points.
21. Nobody is receiving the announcementCheck in this order: Subscribers → Email subscribers when your site goes live is on. It goes out when your page comes down: by the scheduled switch-off time, by Disable on the…
22. Why is someone Waiting for confirmation?Page → Email Collection → Ask new subscribers to confirm their address is on.
23. Somebody got the announcement twiceThey should not, and the plugin is built so they cannot: each address is stamped the moment it is written to, before the attempt, so when a batch dies halfway, the next Send to ……
24. Part of the launch email's code or link is missingLook at Subject and Message in the Launch Email panel on the Subscribers screen.
25. Can I use my own email service?Yes — anything that filters wp_mail.
26. Does it store anything about my visitors?Not from counting.
27. Why are my views lower than my server logs?Robots are not counted: search engines, link previews, uptime monitors, command-line tools and HEAD requests.
28. Will it work with my caching plugin?The closed page is sent with no-store headers, so a well-behaved cache leaves it alone, and so are the real pages shown to anybody let through by the preview link, the password…
29. Does it slow my site down?The opposite, while the mode is on: the plugin answers on template_redirect before your theme renders anything, so the page costs less than a normal one.
30. Will the page work without JavaScript?Yes.
31. Can I use my own HTML?Settings → Header Code takes anything you want in the head of the page — a verification tag, a font, an analytics snippet — printed exactly as typed.
32. Can the page be translated with WPML or Polylang?Yes.
33. Does it need WooCommerce?No.
34. Closing for a holidayWhen the site should stay up and only orders should stop, choose Shop closed for orders under Page → Mode (it needs WooCommerce).
35. I closed the shop for orders and my products still have Add to cartYou are probably signed in with a role that can still buy: administrators and shop managers can, to begin with.
36. The Dashboard says WordPress still asks search engines not to index my siteWordPress has a setting of its own under Settings → Reading, Discourage search engines from indexing this site.
37. I switched the mode off and the shop still says coming soonThat is WooCommerce's own coming soon mode, under WooCommerce → Settings → Site visibility.
38. The Marquee headline keeps movingPress the pause button at the end of the band; press it again to start it.
39. The words are hard to read over my pictureRaise Overlay darkness on the Design screen until they read over the busiest part of the photograph.
40. Does an expired licence stop the plugin?No.
41. Removing the pluginDeactivating stops the scheduled work and leaves your settings, your subscriber list and your counts alone.
42. Why does the page not reload when I save?Because it does not need to.
43. The confirmation message disappears too quicklyHover it and it stays.
44. I have used all my activations. Which sites are they?The plugin's Licence screen lists them.
45. What happens to a site I free?Its copy of the plugin keeps working exactly as it is.
46. The licence screen says "Not activated on this site"Your key is fine — this site simply is not one of the sites using it.
47. Does the settings file contain my password?No.

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