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Planned Outage for Block Themes

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Planned Outage for Block Themes

by Troy Chaplin

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Description

Planned Outage for Block Themes is a lightweight plugin that enables maintenance mode for WordPress block themes. When enabled, logged-out visitors see your custom maintenance template while logged-in users can browse the site normally.

Features:

  • Uses native block theme templates
  • Create maintenance pages in the Site Editor or as theme files
  • Schedule outage windows with a start and end time — maintenance turns on and off automatically
  • Logged-in users bypass maintenance mode
  • Configurable expected duration (Retry-After header); during a scheduled window the header reflects the time remaining automatically
  • Pre-launch mode for sites that aren’t live yet
  • Optional search engine bot access during maintenance
  • Bypass link to let non-logged-in users preview the site during maintenance
  • Admin bar indicator when maintenance mode is active
  • Duration warning after 3 days of maintenance (except in pre-launch mode)
  • Returns proper 503 status code for SEO
  • Cache plugin detection with admin warning and automatic cache flushing

Requirements:

  • WordPress 6.6 or higher
  • A block theme (like Twenty Twenty-Five)
  1. Upload the plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
  2. Go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin.
  3. Create a maintenance template (see FAQ below).
  4. Go to Settings > Planned Outage and enable it.
How do I create a maintenance template?

You have two options:

  1. Site Editor: Go to Appearance > Editor > Templates, create a new template named “maintenance”
  2. Theme file: Add a maintenance.html file to your theme’s /templates/ folder

How does scheduling work?

Set a start and end date/time under Settings > Planned Outage (times are entered in your site’s timezone). Maintenance mode activates automatically when the window begins and deactivates when it ends — no manual toggling and no reliance on WP-Cron: the window is checked on every request, so the switch is exact. The manual toggle still works independently; maintenance is active if either the toggle is on or the current time is inside the window. During a scheduled window the Retry-After header automatically reflects the time remaining.

Does the maintenance template show during WordPress core, plugin, or theme updates?

No, and this is a WordPress limitation rather than a plugin bug. During a real update WordPress creates a .maintenance file and ends the request very early in its boot process — before any plugin code loads — showing its built-in “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance” screen. No plugin can render a block template at that point. These windows are short (WordPress considers maintenance over after 10 minutes) and only occur during actual updates. If you want a custom page for those moments, WordPress supports a hand-made wp-content/maintenance.php drop-in, which is independent of this plugin.

Who can see the site when maintenance mode is enabled?

All logged-in users can browse the site normally. Only logged-out visitors see the maintenance template. You can also enable search engine bots to bypass maintenance mode, or generate a bypass link for non-logged-in users.

What is the Expected Duration setting?

This sets the Retry-After HTTP header, which tells search engines how long to wait before checking your site again. Options range from 30 minutes to 1 day. You can also select “Pre-Launch (indefinite)” for sites that aren’t live yet, which disables duration tracking and admin warnings.

What is the Bypass Link?

When enabled, the plugin generates a secret URL you can share with anyone who needs to view the site during maintenance without logging in. A 12-hour cookie is set on first visit so they can navigate freely. You can regenerate the link at any time to invalidate the previous one.

Should I enable Search Engine Access?

For short maintenance periods (under 2 hours), the default settings are fine. For longer maintenance (over 2 hours), consider enabling search engine access. For maintenance lasting more than a day, always enable it to prevent pages from being removed from search indexes.

What status code is returned?

The plugin returns a 503 (Service Unavailable) status with a Retry-After header, which tells search engines the site is temporarily unavailable.

Will this work with caching plugins?

The plugin detects popular full-page cache plugins (Surge, WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Fastest Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Rocket) and displays a warning on the settings page when one is active. Caches are automatically flushed when settings are saved to ensure the maintenance page is served immediately.

Server-level caches (Nginx FastCGI cache, Varnish, Cloudflare, etc.) cannot be detected or flushed by the plugin. If maintenance mode is not working and you use server-level caching, flush that cache manually.

How to uninstall the plugin?

Simply deactivate and delete the plugin. The plugin stores options prefixed with pobt_ which are removed when you deactivate the plugin.

Great plugin!

By wpapm on February 9, 2026

All the described features work for me. A nice, streamlined plugin. Definitely worth checking out!

1.4.0

  • Added scheduled outage windows with start and end date/time, entered in the site timezone
  • Added automatic activation/deactivation at window boundaries, evaluated on every request (no WP-Cron dependency)
  • Added dynamic Retry-After header during scheduled windows, reflecting the time remaining
  • Added schedule status to the settings page and admin bar (upcoming, active until, past window)
  • Added best-effort cache flushing at scheduled window boundaries via WP-Cron
  • Changed plugin structure: split single file into a bootstrap plus includes/ classes
  • Changed all admin strings to be translatable
  • Fixed readme requirements (WordPress 6.6, PHP 7.3) to match the plugin header

1.3.0

  • Added uninstall hook that removes all plugin options when the plugin is deleted
  • Changed minimum PHP version from 7.0 to 7.3 and minimum WordPress version from 6.3 to 6.6
  • Changed homepage detection to use is_front_page() and is_home() conditionals
  • Changed template canvas path to use the WPINC constant

1.2.1

  • Fixed maintenance template not rendering when a static front page is set in Settings > Reading

1.2.0

  • Added cache plugin detection with admin warning when maintenance mode is active
  • Added automatic cache flushing when plugin settings are saved
  • Added support for detecting Surge, WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Fastest Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, and WP Rocket
  • Added fallback cache detection via advanced-cache.php dropin and wp-content/cache/ directory
  • Added no-cache headers on all bypass responses to prevent reverse proxy cache poisoning
  • Fixed bypass link, logged-in user, and bot responses poisoning server-level caches

1.1.0

  • Added bypass link feature for sharing preview access with non-logged-in users
  • Added pre-launch mode (indefinite duration) that disables time tracking and admin warnings
  • Bypass link sets a 12-hour cookie for seamless navigation
  • Regenerate bypass link to invalidate previous links

1.0.0

  • Initial release
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