How to Fix a 504 Error on Your Website

A 504 Gateway Timeout error means a gateway or proxy did not receive a response fast enough from the upstream server. The request was valid, but the response took too long. Fixing a 504 usually involves performance improvements, dependency checks, or timeout adjustments.

Step 1: Confirm the timeout

Check the page from another device or network. If the error is real, monitoring tools will show repeated timeouts across locations and capture the response time trend leading up to the 504.

Step 2: Check server load

High CPU, memory usage, or slow disks can cause requests to stall. Look at your hosting dashboard and restart services if they are stuck. If load is consistently high, you may need to scale up resources.

Step 3: Identify slow database queries

Database queries are a common root cause of timeouts. Review recent changes and look for new queries that may be heavy or missing indexes. If you have a developer, ask for slow query logs.

Step 4: Inspect third-party APIs

If your page depends on external APIs, a slowdown can block the page. Temporarily disable those integrations or use cached data to reduce dependency on external response times.

Step 5: Review gateway timeout settings

Sometimes timeouts are configured too aggressively. If your pages normally take longer to respond, you may need to increase the timeout window. Be careful though: longer timeouts can hide performance issues rather than fix them.

Step 6: Optimize caching and CDN usage

Use caching to reduce repeated heavy requests. A CDN can serve static assets faster and reduce load on your origin server, which helps prevent timeouts during traffic spikes.

Step 7: Communicate if the issue persists

If the outage lasts more than a few minutes, update customers or pause campaigns. This prevents wasted spend and protects trust.

Preventing future 504 errors

Monitor response time trends and set alerts before timeouts happen. Keep your performance baseline healthy and scale ahead of campaigns or promotions.

Step 8: Set a performance budget

Define an acceptable response time target for key pages and use it as a threshold in your monitoring. If load time drifts upward, you can act early before a timeout appears.