SOLVED Error 503 (Service Unavailable) on old server after moving with Transfer Tool

[ipkiss]

Yesterday I used the Transfer Tool to move my websites to a new IP address. It was a temporary move and I wanted to revert back to my old server today. First thing I noticed was the transfer tool changed all the A records for all sites. I changed these back using swapip, and then tried accessing the sites. They load for a very long time and finally fail with:

Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

From numerous threads, I realized 503 usually occurs when System PHP-FPM is on. However, I didn't set this on niether before nor after moving. I didn't change any other settings except the DNS, so I'm guessing it should be a DNS issue, not sure if DNS issues can cause 503 errors. I've been struggling with this for a day now.

Checking Apache Error log, I see attempts to connect to the server I temporarily moved to:

[proxy_http:error] [pid 1659:tid 47454830633216] (110)Connection timed out: AH00957: HTTPS: attempt to connect to [new.ip.address]:443

 

[ipkiss]

Problem was Transfer tool modified all A records of all domains on the old server to point to the new server, and then suspended all sites on the old server. Additionally, the transfer tool placed a proxy on all accounts, making it impossible to access them even after I had changed all the A records. So solution: I changed the A records and then unsuspended the accounts (which in turn removed the proxy).
BTW don't understand why this thread took over 36 hours to get approved. What's the point of a forum if problems can't be solved quick? Fortunately I trusted my own research skills.

 

[cPJustinD]

Hello, ipkiss! We apologize for the delay in response, as received a higher volume of forums posts requests than normal.

I am glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue by reverting the transfer tool changes. In the future, you can disable the Live Transfer feature so that no IPs are updated and no proxy is placed. More on this can be found here:

How To Disable Live Transfer by Default
How to disable the Live Transfer feature in Transfer Tool

Additionally, we also have a guide on reverting the Live Transfer changes, for future reference, here:

How do I revert the changes made by the live transfer feature in the transfer tool?

I hope that this helps! If you any other questions or concerns, please let us know!

Thank you for choosing cPanel!