Maintenance Mode Error

After watching the latest Digital Startups video on customising maintenance mode I thought I’d give it a go. However, when I’m getting the following error message instead:

I also updated local.xml to send an email (and updated the email address) so this shouldn’t even be printing to the browser (I think).

Damn. I should have mentioned this in the video…

Maintenance Mode is mostly to protect you after your website has gone live. And less of a feature whilst you’re site is in development as it assumes you’re already taken measures to hide your site from the public anyway.

The video assumes you’re in Production Mode. What you’re seeing is the correct result when in Maintenance Mode.

EDIT: I’ve updated the article to include this information. Apologies for the inconvenience.