Put a file called “db-error.php” directly inside your /wp-content/ folder and WordPress will automatically use that when there is a database connection problem.
<?php // custom WordPress database error page
header('HTTP/1.1 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
header('Status: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
header('Retry-After: 600'); // 1 hour = 3600 seconds
// If you wish to email yourself upon an error
// mail("[email protected]", "Database Error", "There is a problem with the database!", "From: Db Error Watching");
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>Database Error</title>
<style>
body { padding: 20px; background: red; color: white; font-size: 60px; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
You got problems.
</body>
</html>
We have a free plugin to allow templates for the error pages, such as comment submission errors. <a href=”mudslidedesign.co.uk/blog/theme-able-wordpress-error-page”>mudslidedesign.co.uk/blog/theme-able-wordpress-error-page, let us know what you think of it.</a>, let us know what you think of it.
The only problem I see with this is when your database stops responding for a few minutes.
If you activate the email notification you’ll get a lots of emails when a single one would have been enough.
Other then that it’s a great tip.
You could always create a session variable when the email is sent so you only get one email to notify you if there is a problem. Good tip, thanks Chris :)