What is a 504 Gateway Timeout Error and What can you do?

If you are reading this, it indicates you recently came across an error message that says – 504 Gateway Timeout Error. This error mainly occurs when a server doesn’t get a timely response from another server while loading a web page. Most of the time, this error belongs to the website itself and there is not much that you can do to fix it. Nonetheless, here are some quick tricks that you may try to fix this error. So, let’s get started.

What is a 504 Gateway Timeout Error

Similar to the 4xx error codes like “404 Page Not Found Error“, 504 Gateway Timeout Error is also an HTTP status code. This is a server-side error that indicates the problem is caused by the server. It is quite common to occur and almost every user would have encountered it while trying to load a page.

Sometimes it happens that you may see different forms of 504 Gateway Timeout Error on a different number of web browsers. However, they all have the same meaning. Here are some alternative names of 504 Gateway Timeout Error that you may experience. They are as follows:

• Gateway Timeout (504)
• 504 Gateway Timeout
• 504 ERROR
• Gateway Timeout Error
• HTTP Error 504 – Gateway Timeout
• HTTP 504

How to fix 504 Gateway Timeout Error

As it is said earlier that this error is a server-side error, it suggests that the problem only relates to the server-side, not from the client-side. Since the problem doesn’t belong to the client-side, you, as an end-user, can’t do anything to fix the issue from your side.

And as a result, there’s not much you can do to sort out this issue. However, this guide includes a few quick things that you may try on your end. So, try out the below suggestions to fix the related issue:

1. Refresh the Page after a minute maybe
2. Restart all of your network devices
3. Disable Proxy Settings
4. Change your DNS servers
5. Contact the website
6. Contact your Internet Service Provider
7. Try again after some time.

Let us see them in detail:

1] Refresh the Page

504 Gateway Timeout Error sometimes might be a temporary problem. This situation occurs when a large number of request occurs simultaneously and the server becomes unable to manage more. In this case, the reloading page always worth a shot.

To do this, you can press Ctrl+F5 (or F5) keyboard shortcut and can also use the refresh button that is available next to the address bar. It doesn’t always resolve the issue, but it takes just a second so give it a try once.

2] Restart all of your network devices

If you confront this error, you need to check whether you’re the only person who is facing it or other people having the same problem as well. To do this, you can test it with different devices like other computers and mobile phones.

That way you can find whether this is a common issue or a server-side error. If you find it as a local issue then a simple restart of your system and the networking device may help you to get out of this mess.

3] Disable Proxy Settings

Sometimes you may receive this error if you are using a proxy service. It happens occasionally, particularly on the client-side. So, all you need to disable the Proxy Settings and check if that works for you.

4] Change your DNS servers

Unfortunately, if all the devices on your network are receiving the same error then the problem might be related to the DNS servers you are using. In this case, you may need to change your DNS servers and then try to access the website again.

Sometimes this error can also be the result of having incorrect or outdated DNS cache. In this situation, you may try to Flush the DNS Cache.

5] Contact the website

As the next solution to fix this error, you may try to contact the site owner directly if you can. It might be possible that this problem is nothing but a small mistake. So, when you would contact them, explain what steps you took to fix the issue.

The representative person can explain to you well the proper reasons to occur this error. That way, you may possibly get rid of the 504 Gateway Timeout Error.

6] Contact your Internet Service Provider

Another option is to contact your internet service provider. Actually, after following nearly all the possible methods, it seems that it is a network-related issue that your ISP would responsible for. Therefore, contact your Internet Service Provider and let them know about the concerning issue.

7] Try again after some time

As you have tried all the possible solutions and still the error code is persisting then as a last resort, you need to wait and try it later. So, check out the site on a regular basis and it will start working as soon as possible.

I hope this guide would help you to fix this error. If you have any further solutions related to this error code, let us know in the comments below.

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