Most maintenance plugins don’t work smoothly with WordPress multisite networks, but I found one that I’d like to recommend. WPMS Site Maintenance Mode was actually made just for multisite. It allows the super admin to put the entire network, main site, or subsites into maintenance mode. There’s also an option to customize the appearance of the maintenance page and set a time for the site to return.
Check out the settings page:
Once you turn it on you’ll get something like this:
I tested WPMS Site Maintenance Mode this weekend and I’d recommend this WordPress multisite plugin to any network admin who needs a quick way to bring the stie(s) down for a few updates. Download it for free from the WordPress plugin repository.
Not sure what to say, does this screen shot look familiar? http://screencast.com/t/1PB64bSFxxxR
Its the Shutdown plugin by ITDamager – been around since WPMU, and version 0.1.1 still works.
Checked the plugin code and he acknowledges the original author. Wondering what is new or improved since the old version still works for me…
Not wrong, I remmeber it too – wonder what became of itdamager, he was a bit of a legend.
lol, yeah, I still use a few very old plugins, I mean as long as they still work…
amazing how long some silly little plugins can be used :-)
a pity he disappeared, his page disappeared, gone for years.
you know I really wonder sometimes, I mean there are a few names that simply disappeared over the years, they just fade away…
hey, here is a little quizz, lets see how many of these guys you remember:
drmike
IT Damager
Andrew Billits
Luke from thunderlounge.com
haven’t heard or seen their names in quite a while…
btw. I just realized I stil use 3 of IT Damager’s plugins, incredible. sorry for getting sentimental here BUT there is an upside to this: the dude who revamped this plugin mentioned IT Damager as the original author. Nice to see that.
I remember them all, and can give you a summary of all of them apart from IT, maybe over a beer (or email) rather than in public tho :)
sure thing, didn’t mean to start this discussion here.
cya around (virtually ;-)
Didn’t realize it was an old plugin – those guys are a bit before my time. ;)
Good one!
I guess menu options could be better under the network admin/settings.
Themefuse maintenance mode works really well – even on multi-site. It states that it’s compatible up to 3.1.4 – but they just released an update recently and I could swear it said that they had brought it up to 3.2.1
Anyway, it’s worth trying out. It’s a beautiful plugin.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/themefuse-maintenance-mode/
Does this plug-in allow an admin or a pre-defined IP to test out the site (front-end), while the maintenance screen is shown to other users? I need to update a high profile multisite with 50 blogs from WPMU 1.2.4 til WP3.2.1, and I need to test it good before letting the updated version live.
I have a similar question to Mikkel – I need to replace several old Joomla sites with a modern WPMU network, It’s a huge site and will take months – I need to do it behind closed doors.
Thanks
Doesn’t look like it does but would be great if you put individual sites in a multisite into maintenance mode. Can this be done with this plugin or does someone know another?