Notes from the server room.
Engineering deep dives, infrastructure tutorials, and the occasional opinion from the team building a faster way to run servers.
Latest articles
227 articles
How to Recover a WordPress Site That Won't Load
No specific error message, the site just won't load? Work through the triage order: HTTP status, DNS, services, logs, disk space...
How to Fix WordPress Image Upload "HTTP Error"
The generic HTTP error on Media Library upload is WordPress hiding a real GD/Imagick or memory problem. Here's how to find it...
How to Fix Slow WordPress Admin Dashboard
A slow wp-admin usually traces to Heartbeat polling, bloated autoloaded options, or missing object caching, not "too many plugins"...
How to Resolve WordPress "Mixed Content" SSL Warnings
Mixed content warnings mean hardcoded http:// URLs are baked into your database or theme. Fix them safely with wp-cli, not raw SQL...
How to Fix the "Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance" Error
WordPress's own update process left a stuck .maintenance file behind. Here's exactly why it lingers and how to clear it safely...
How to Fix WordPress "Stuck in Maintenance Mode"
An interrupted update leaves a .maintenance file behind that never gets deleted. Here's how to confirm it's safe to remove and fix it...
How to Increase WordPress Memory Limit
"Allowed memory size exhausted" is WordPress's own WP_MEMORY_LIMIT hitting a wall. Here's how to raise it correctly, and what actually caps it...
How to Fix "This Site Is Experiencing Technical Difficulties"
This is WordPress's built-in fatal error protection, not a hosting outage. Here's how the recovery-mode email works and how to fix it fast...
How to Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death
A blank white page is a fatal PHP error with error display switched off. Enable WP_DEBUG, read the log, and isolate the real cause...
How to Fix "Error Establishing a Database Connection" in WordPress
This error almost always means wp-config.php credentials are wrong or MariaDB isn't running. Here's how to diagnose and fix it fast...
How to Recover a Server You're Locked Out Of
Locked out of SSH after a bad firewall rule, fail2ban ban, or a lost key? Use your cloud provider console to regain access fast...
How to Fix "403 Forbidden" Errors on Nginx
A 403 Forbidden error on Nginx means the server refused your request, usually bad permissions, a missing index, or a deny rule...
How to Diagnose a Server That Keeps Crashing
A server that crashes repeatedly needs a timeline, not guesswork. Learn to check dmesg for OOM kills, disk exhaustion, and memory leaks...
How to Fix High CPU Usage on a Web Server
High CPU usage on a web server usually traces to one runaway MySQL query, plugin, or bot. Learn to find the exact cause fast...
How to Free Up Disk Space on a Full Linux Server
A full Linux server disk causes MySQL write failures and site 500 errors. Learn how to find what's eating space fast and reclaim it safely...
How to Fix "Connection Refused" Errors on a Server
A connection refused error means nothing is listening on that port, unlike a timeout. Here's how to diagnose the real cause fast...
Why Your Server Runs Out of Memory (and How to Fix It)
Servers run out of memory from oversized PHP-FPM pools, an overgrown MySQL buffer, or no swap at all. Learn to diagnose OOM kills...
How to Fix "500 Internal Server Error" on a VPS
A 500 Internal Server Error means PHP crashed without saying why. Find the real error log, then fix the fatal error or memory limit...
How to Fix "504 Gateway Timeout" Errors
A 504 Gateway Timeout means Nginx reached your server, but the upstream took too long to respond. Learn to diagnose the real bottleneck...
How to Fix "502 Bad Gateway" on Nginx
A 502 Bad Gateway means Nginx reached PHP-FPM or Apache but got no valid response back. Learn the real causes and the exact fix commands...
How to Get Notified the Moment Your Site Goes Down
Set up downtime alerts that catch outages within a minute: fast HTTP checks, SMS and webhook alerts, escalation tiers, and a free curl-and-cron fallback...
How to Set Up Log Rotation to Save Disk Space
Set up logrotate on Ubuntu/Debian to stop custom app logs from filling your disk. Real configs, dry-run testing, and compression tips...
The Essential Server Metrics You Should Be Watching
The server metrics that actually predict downtime: load average, CPU, memory, disk I/O, connections, and application errors...
How to Track Down a Memory Leak on Your Server
Confirm a server memory leak with repeated measurements, find the culprit process, and use PHP-FPM's pm.max_requests to mitigate it while you fix the code...
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