503 error (ATE)

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Supporter timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)

Tagged: Large Sites, Not WPML issue

This topic contains 10 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Alejandro 1 day, 22 hours ago.

Assisted by: Alejandro.

Author	Posts
July 24, 2025 at 10:02 am #17266799
yvesB-21	can you check why i am seeing this ? 503 error
July 24, 2025 at 10:03 am #17266801
Alejandro WPML Supporter since 02/2018 Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español ) Italian (Italiano ) Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)	Hello, The error on the image showed a maintenance message before the error, the maintenance error is coming from WordPress, were you updating plugins or the theme by any chance? and is the error still there?
July 24, 2025 at 11:17 am #17267080
yvesB-21	i was, it was gone when i refreshed in a while. i thought this was linked with people seeing the same error which i talked about
July 24, 2025 at 11:28 am #17267102
Alejandro WPML Supporter since 02/2018 Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español ) Italian (Italiano ) Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)	Remember to keep the debug.log enabled and check it from time to time. The lines to enable it in the wp-config.php should NOT be at the end of the file, but more or less after any other "define". that is required for the file to actually log the content. And if you have any auto update, it could be the reason why clients see that although it's unlikely, that sounds more like the server really just reached the max resources for the second and stopped working, the hosting usually have stats about this.
July 24, 2025 at 11:05 pm #17269626
yvesB-21	i was checking the debug log file, there are so many errors i see, please can you check that? i did give you FTP access. the debug log file is inside wp-content folder named "debug.log" and it seems it is related to wpml
July 25, 2025 at 4:46 pm #17271871
Alejandro WPML Supporter since 02/2018 Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español ) Italian (Italiano ) Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)	Hello, I already checked those errors (I guess you mean the ones on the WPML > Support > Advanced Translation Editor), they are old ones and were related to things that I already checked you fixed and in fact the last time you had an issue was on the 17th. that log records the issues but doesn't allow you to delete them and will keep only 50 of them so make sure you always check that the errors have today's date given that a recurring issue will repeat everyday, at least once per day. Your last error was on the 17th and that was because of a server upgrade we did. ------------------ If you mean the DEBUG.LOG file then there are many notices, yes, but they have nothing to do with WPML, they are a WordPress localization related issue coming from Complianz plugin, WooCommerce Cost of Goods, WMUDEV and many other plugins. You can see the name in the actual notice since they look like this: [24-Jul-2025 22:59:14 UTC] PHP Notice: _load_textdomain_just_in_time تمّ استدعائه بشكل غير صحيح. Translation loading for the woocommerce-cost-of-goods ... these are 99% of the content you get in the debug.log There are indeed errors there, but again, they are not related to WPML. one of them is related to Elementor: [24-Jul-2025 23:00:50 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught ValueError: Unknown format specifier "?" in /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/mega-menu/widgets/mega-menu.php:2196 You should contact Elementor's Support and ask about it but these issues usually mean that you have a "bad" collation or charset in the database that doesn't handle special characters (like Arabic letters, or similar characters). In fact, you also have another error: [24-Jul-2025 23:01:27 UTC] WordPress database error Illegal mix of collations for operation 'UNION' for query This error is actually talking about a mix of collations so it's likely the 2 errors are related and THIS could actually be why the users are seeing the errors you mentioned sometimes, they are not happening every time but they are happening and these errors do break the site for a moment. They are also making the site slower than usual and taking up resources so fixing them should make the site more stable and probably faster 🙂 There are also a few errors about WooCommerce either not finding some files (in this case you can reinstall WooCommerce) or not being able to access it (server permission issue which can be handled by your hosting) You also have many other errors, and you can filter them by searching for "Error", those are the ones breaking your site and you have many but none of them are actually WPML related. Regards,
July 28, 2025 at 6:39 pm #17276478
yvesB-21	i am looking into it, but the thing is we never had these issues at all. we only installed wpml and suddenly all of these issues started to pop up. it doesn't make sense. but still i will contact elementor again, they told me to contact you guys regarding this.
July 28, 2025 at 7:10 pm #17276590
Alejandro WPML Supporter since 02/2018 Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español ) Italian (Italiano ) Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)	The elementor support will likely not be able to help, because the problem is in your database not in WordPress, so not in elementor per se, elementor is just the one that fails right now. And yes, it's 100% sure the problem didn't happen before you installed WPML, but not because of what you think. Before you installed WPML you didn't have languages like arabic, chinese or Hindi which are 100% special characters. The problem you have is created because of the special characters so basically because you enabled those languages. Spanish, Italian, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic all of them have special characters that can break your collation thus breaking your site. English, or I think even dutch do not have special characters that can break your site in the same way. So yes, your database has a WRONG collation. a collation is to put it simply:a way for the database to "understand" the text that's incoming. In a nutshell, your database has a collation that is probably ok for languages like English but that can't handle languages like chinese, hindi or arabic. You added those languages and BOOM you started having issues. If you didn't have WPML and decided to switch your site to arabic or any of the above-mentioned languages you'd run into the same issues. Please let me know if it's clear now: all you have to do is ask your HOSTING support to please check the collation on the databases and add a standard one that can handle special characters like chinese, arabic or hindi characters and emojis. Once that's solved we can jump into the remaining issues because you'll still have some of those, since the database won't magically fix the entries you have, but it will be easier to fix those issues then. Regards,
July 31, 2025 at 8:10 pm #17286655
yvesB-21	i have changed all the collation problem, can you please check what is wrong with elementor on the Arabic version?
July 31, 2025 at 8:12 pm #17286657
yvesB-21	elementor support is saying it is got to do with your plugin, 31-Jul-2025 16:07:18 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught ValueError: Unknown format specifier " " in /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/mega-menu/widgets/mega-menu.php:2196 Stack trace: #0 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/mega-menu/widgets/mega-menu.php(2196): sprintf() #1 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/mega-menu/widgets/mega-menu.php(2011): ElementorPro\Modules\MegaMenu\Widgets\Mega_Menu->render_menu_titles_html() #2 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/base/controls-stack.php(2374): ElementorPro\Modules\MegaMenu\Widgets\Mega_Menu->render() #3 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/base/widget-base.php(636): Elementor\Controls_Stack->render_by_mode() #4 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/base/widget-base.php(774): Elementor\Widget_Base->render_content() #5 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/base/element-base.php(492): Elementor\Widget_Base->print_content() #6 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/base/element-base.php(1453): Elementor\Element_Base->print_element() #7 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/base/element-base.php(492): Elementor\Element_Base->print_content() #8 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/core/base/document.php(1897): Elementor\Element_Base->print_element() #9 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/core/base/document.php(1844): Elementor\Core\Base\Document->do_print_elements() #10 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/theme-builder/documents/theme-document.php(412): Elementor\Core\Base\Document->print_elements() #11 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/includes/frontend.php(1169): ElementorPro\Modules\ThemeBuilder\Documents\Theme_Document->print_elements_with_wrapper() #12 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/core/base/document.php(1258): Elementor\Frontend->get_builder_content() #13 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/modules/library/documents/library-document.php(76): Elementor\Core\Base\Document->get_content() #14 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/theme-builder/documents/theme-document.php(158): Elementor\Modules\Library\Documents\Library_Document->get_content() #15 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/theme-builder/documents/theme-document.php(173): ElementorPro\Modules\ThemeBuilder\Documents\Theme_Document->get_content() #16 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/theme-builder/classes/locations-manager.php(436): ElementorPro\Modules\ThemeBuilder\Documents\Theme_Document->print_content() #17 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/themes/astra/inc/compatibility/class-astra-elementor-pro.php(408): ElementorPro\Modules\ThemeBuilder\Classes\Locations_Manager->do_location() #18 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(324): ElementorPro\Modules\ThemeBuilder\ThemeSupport\Astra_Elementor_Pro->do_header() #19 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(348): WP_Hook->apply_filters() #20 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/plugin.php(517): WP_Hook->do_action() #21 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/themes/astra/inc/core/theme-hooks.php(143): do_action() #22 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/themes/astra/header.php(62): astra_header() #23 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/template.php(810): require_once('...') #24 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/template.php(745): load_template() #25 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/general-template.php(48): locate_template() #26 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor/modules/page-templates/templates/header-footer.php(9): get_header() #27 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('...') #28 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('...') #29 /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/index.php(17): require('...') #30 {main} thrown in /home/1308505.cloudwaysapps.com/dwdfyhvxnv/public_html/wp-content/plugins/elementor-pro/modules/mega-menu/widgets/mega-menu.php on line 2196
August 1, 2025 at 3:10 pm #17288842
Alejandro WPML Supporter since 02/2018 Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español ) Italian (Italiano ) Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)	I really have no idea why would they say that I actually found what the problem was. when you had collation issues the page that was translated contained a lot of special characters (arabic alphabet) and that basically broke one element from Elementor. so the solution here is to delete those pages and translate them again. I'm doing that for you to see if the problem is fixed then. please stand by.