Immediate Assistance: Won't Deactivate Maintenance Mode Redirect

FTP to your site and look for a file called “.maintenance” in the root of the site. If it’s there, delete it.

I don’t see it there. Other than the .htaccess, that’s the only visible .* file I can see. I can’t believe this one plugin is ruining my entire website. This is ridiculous!!

I’m able to get to my /wp-admin and log-in, and work in the back-end, but when I try viewing the root (index) of the site, it redirects to this 304.php, even though (a) I tried renaming this file to something else to break it, still happens…and (b) I tried taking out the .htaccess file to see if it might have anything to do with that, still nothing changed…and (c) I tried taking out W3 Total Cache AND the Maintenance Mode plugin altogether…and still nothing works!

What did it do to my site??

I fixed it…apparently there was an index.html left in the root (don’t ask me HOW it got there) but even with my .htaccess file setting the index to index.php, it remains a complete mystery to me! I’m very put out how this happened or what this has to do with the Maintenance Mode plugin, but I am NEVER using it again.

Special thanks to Rich ‘elfin’ Pedley for their help in my moment of catastrophe! I appreciate your quick response and helpful idea ??