Troubleshooting 503 Service Unavailable errors during Adobe Experience Manager production go-live
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) production websites may return 503 Service Unavailable errors during go-live because of resource exhaustion, deployment misconfiguration, or service restarts. To resolve the issue, check the health of Publish and Dispatcher instances, review recent changes, monitor system resources, and verify that the website is accessible after recovery.
Description description
Environment
- Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), all versions
- Production environment
Issue/Symptoms
- AEM production websites return 503 Service Unavailable errors during critical events such as go-live deployments.
- The server is temporarily unable to handle requests, making the website inaccessible.
- The issue can cause significant business disruption, especially during high-visibility events.
Root cause
The cause of 503 errors can vary. Common causes include resource exhaustion involving CPU, memory, disk, or network resources, deployment misconfiguration, or service restarts. These issues are often triggered by recent changes made during go-live activities.
Resolution resolution
Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:
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Confirm the 503 errors by accessing the affected URLs and reviewing the error messages.
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Check the health and status of all AEM Publish and Dispatcher instances serving the production site.
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Review recent deployment or configuration changes for potential causes:
- Incorrect Dispatcher or web server configuration.
- Insufficient server resources allocated.
- Unintended service restarts or failures.
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Monitor system resource utilization, including CPU, memory, disk, and network, on all relevant servers to identify bottlenecks or failures.
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If the issue is intermittent or has cleared, continue monitoring the environment closely for recurrence.
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After resolving the issue, verify that the website is accessible and serves content as expected.