Hi Lacfinusa,
This error message is new to us as well, probably part of the new MailChimp API. It could be that the MailChimp server is having a temporary hiccup or that you’ve been blocked by the Akamai firewall that MailChimp uses.
Where did you find that MailChimp uses the 503 Service Unavailable status for accounts under compliance review?
Your best bet is probably to get in touch with MailChimp or to tweet the MailChimp team to ask them to look into your account. Sorry I can’t be of more help right away, but this really is new territory outside of the plugin’s control..
I am having the same issue this morning as well. I pop my API key in and hit save and it just goes back to my home page of my site. When I get back into the Admin section of wordpress the key is gone and it’s not connected.
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
Hi Fury88,
Please check if you are on the latest version of our plugin. What version number do you see under Plugins in WP-admin for our plugin?
Do you see an error in the Other screen of the MailChimp for WP settings?
Did you already check all the steps on https://mc4wp.com/kb/solving-connectivity-issues/ ?
What version of cURL are you running on your server (you can ask your hosting provider about this)?
Well I’ve hit the URL and received the JSON string back properly from what I can tell. I doubt it’s a firewall issue, etc as I’ve never had an API issue with this hosted wordpress. I did see that page and nothing on there looked like the issue I was having.
I DID in fact just update the WordPress to the latest version (4.6 I believe). I don’t see an update or your plugin which I have installed (4.0.2). This is the first time I attempted to install though.
I’ll keep digging…
Experiencing the same issue on my site: http://jasonamunwa.com/subscribe
It was functioning just fine yesterday, and I noticed today that the connection has been broken. Tried re-entering my Mailchimp API key, but it hasn’t made any difference. It also doesn’t provide any specific error message.
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
@fury: Did you hit the URL from your computer or from your hosting server? If it is a firewall issue it might be that only the IP from your hosting server is blocked.
@jasonamunwa: Did you also just update to WordPress 4.6?
Already went trough the steps on Did you already check all the steps on https://mc4wp.com/kb/solving-connectivity-issues/ ?
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
I did some tests with WordPress 4.6 and did not find any issues, but your configuration might be different. Do you see any errors in the Apache log?
“It also doesn’t provide any specific error message.”
Not in the debug log on the Others page and not on the API key screen of the plugin? Does it say connected? Else there should be an error message.
@lap nope, I’m on 4.5.3 – I’m using Media Temple’s managed WP hosting package.
I checked with MT, here’s their answer to me: The cURL version that comes with Premium WordPress is 7.45, and requests to *.api.mailchimp.com should not be blocked.
Here’s a screenshot of the error log:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4YpS8WtGwXdQnlSUEt0Uzlxd3c/view?usp=sharing
Thanks for following up on this so quick!
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
HTTP Error 503 – Service unavailable
Somewhere along the way a server replies that service is not available. Hard to say if this is the MailChimp API or another step on the way there (for example within your hosting providers network).
Without actually trying to manually run the cURL command from the SSH shell it is very hard to debug it and asking the hosting provider for support would still be the best way forward.
I would try to generate a new API key in your MailChimp account that ends with a different number (and thus a different server) and try again.
@lap Cool, will give it a try, thanks for the suggestions!
If it helps, I switched to a Wufoo form integrated with my Mailchimp account, and am now able to process subscriptions again, so not sure whether it’s an issue on their end, or what’s up.
I have the same problem when I updated to the last version of WordPress 4.6.
Following your suggestions I have contacted my hosting to know whether PHP CURL module is installed and updated. However they have told me that this option is not provided for shared hostings due to security issues. In any case everythin was working fine till the wordpress version 4.6
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
Hi Alisado,
Our plugin has always been using cURL and wouldn’t have worked without cURL.
Most (if not all) of the hosting providers I have worked with do provide cURL on shared hosting without any issues.
I also upgraded to wordpress 4.6 (onfortunately it seems). Same over here, I cannot get my wordpress plugin being connected anymore. Before it worked like a charm. Now.. hopeless. I really hope there will be found a solution.
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
We are looking into the problem, but we can’t reproduce this issue. We also updated all our test installations and some of our production sites and don’t have this problem anywhere. That makes it a bit harder to find out what is going wrong.
@janc63, can you please send us an email at support @ mc4wp . com with a link to this thread in case our programmer needs more information from you?
Thanks!
Plugin Contributor
Lap
(@lapzor)
We found so far that the API 503 error points to a very old version of cURL. Please check your cURL version before making a ticket here!
For this plugin to work you need at least cURL 7.35 or higher.
To check you cURL version, install a phpinfo plugin in your wordpress, open the phpinfo page and search for cURL with ctrl+f.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-php-info/
For more information on connectivity issues please see:
https://mc4wp.com/kb/solving-connectivity-issues/
If none of those solution work for you, please make a NEW ticket here.
Do not respond to this ticket as I will now mark it resolved.
Thank you kindly.
