The service is unavailable. When Site down message is on

[miles]

OK i have a fresh install of version 1.11.3 which went without a hitch, i have created some pages, added some pictures etc but the site isnt quite ready so i want to show the Site Down message. i have added an image to the site down message and a bit of text, the usual 'site is under development' stuff. anyway if i access the web site from my web server the site down message works perfectly but if i access from another PC in ie9 (or safari) it just shows 'the service is unavailable'. if i untick 'Enable Site Down Message' the web site works perfectly on both the server & ie9 & Safari. i have tried clearing the cache, i even tried reinstalling CMS via domain/install/upgrade.php but still the same result.
does anyone have any ideas how i can resolve this? i am using Server 2008 Web edition on a hosted server and have another CMS site running a very old cms version (1.3 Cuba) and site down works fine on that. Any assistance appreciated!

I have just started from scratch to see if it was something i did whilst changing my site so i have deleted all files from my server, copied over complete fresh files from CMS 1.11.3 and created a new empty database. during install i told CMS to install the demo pages and exactly the same problem. Is this a bug?

[staartmees]

As mentioned before 1.11.3 is no longer supported. If it's a fresh install, why don't you install the latest version 1.11.6?

[miles]

OK i just upgraded from 1.11.3 to 1.11.6 without any issues and still getting exactly the same, if i browse to my website it works perfectly, as soon as i tick Enable Site Down Message i get 'The service is unavailable.' in ie9 & Safari unless i browse to it on my server where site down message works fine?
Can anyone assist with this as i'd love to be able to get it working properly?

[calguy1000]

A service unavailable message is a 503 error.

I smell mod_security again. It's probably detecting something that it thinks is bad for some other web app somewhere, and throwing out an error message.

I would ask your host to check their mod_security logs, and if they find anything to whitelist mod_security for your sites.

[miles]

Just googled mod_security and am i right in saying this is linked to apache server? im using IIS 7? looks like you can install mod_security to IIS 7 but mine definately doesn't have it installed.

[calguy1000]

Yeah, you're right.

and I can't help you with IIS (huge allergy to MS Products, they make me break out in fits of anger).

But some quick googling said you need to check your event logs.

[miles]

understand what you mean about Microsoft I have switched the site down message back on and nothing reported in my log files on my server no errors, no info nothing at all. Anyone have any ideas?

[Dr.CSS]

It seems like you need to do the site down as an actual page in content > pages set as default using a template with no menu, then when site is ready set the true home page as default...

[miles]

yes thats what i have done for now but i wanted to be able to view the site whilst under construction using the 'Exclude users logged in to the CMSMS admin console' & 'Exclude these IP Addresses from Site Down Messages' therefore give the site a proper trial and demo to end user as well before setting live. Surely someone else has / has had this issue?

[Dr.CSS]

I make a splash page(not shown in menu) all the time w/o having a problem going to the rest of the site...

http://laughinggravyproductions.com/

http://laughinggravyproductions.com/index.php?page=home