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How to Fix the HTTP Image Upload Error in WordPress (Easy)

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Do you need to fix the HTTP image upload error in WordPress?

This error can be particularly frustrating when you are creating content in WordPress. It usually occurs when you are uploading an image or other files to the CMS using the built-in WordPress media library.

In this article, we will show you how to easily fix the HTTP image upload error in WordPress.

How to fix http error when uploading images in WordPress

What Causes the HTTP Error During Media Upload in WordPress?

Many things could lead to an HTTP error when you are trying to upload files to your WordPress website using the WordPress media uploader.

Basically, WordPress is unable to figure out the cause, and that’s why it displays the generic ‘HTTP error’ message.

HTTP Error

The frustrating thing about this WordPress HTTP error is that it doesn’t give you any clue about what may have caused it. This means that you will have to try different solutions to find the cause and fix the error.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to troubleshoot and fix the HTTP error during media upload in WordPress. Feel free to use the links below to skip to a specific method:

Method 1: Make Sure the HTTP Error Is Not Temporary

First, you should wait a few minutes and then try uploading your image file again to your WordPress website. This error is sometimes caused by unusual traffic and low server resources, which are automatically fixed on most WordPress hosting servers.

If that doesn’t work, then you may want to try one or more of the following:

  • Refresh your browser or clear your browser cache.
  • Resize and rename the file and upload it again to the media library. Check out our list of image optimization plugins to reduce your file size.
  • Save the file in a different format. For example, you can change JPEG to PNG using image editing software. After that, retry uploading the file.

If following all these steps still results in the HTTP error, then the error is not caused by a temporary glitch and definitely needs your immediate attention.

Method 2: Deactivate All WordPress Plugins

If you just installed a new WordPress plugin recently, it may be incompatible with your other plugins and disrupt the image upload process. To see if this is the case, you can deactivate all your WordPress plugins.

If the HTTP error disappears after deactivating a WordPress plugin, then that may be the culprit behind the HTTP upload image error. You can install an alternative plugin or contact the developer for support.

For more information, check out our guide on how to easily deactivate all WordPress plugins and how to deactivate plugins when the WordPress dashboard is inaccessible.

Method 3: Increase WordPress Memory Limit

WordPress is written in the PHP programming language. Additionally, the amount of memory allocated for different PHP processes is determined by your web hosting server.

If uploading images requires more PHP memory than is available, you may see the HTTP image upload error in WordPress.

To fix this, you need to increase the memory PHP can use on your server.

You will first need to access your site’s files using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your web hosting dashboard. Next, go to your root directory and find the wp-config.php file.

Edit wp-config file

You will then need to edit the wp-config.php file using a text editor and add the following line of code to it:

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );

This code increases the WordPress memory limit to 256MB, which would be enough to fix any memory limit issues.

Finally, you must save and upload the file back to the server.

To learn more, please see our step-by-step guide on how to increase the PHP memory limit in WordPress.

Method 4: Change the Image Editor Library Used by WordPress

WordPress runs on PHP, which uses two modules to handle images. These modules are called GD Library and Imagick. WordPress may use either one of them, depending on which one is available.

However, Imagick often runs into memory issues, causing the HTTP error during image uploads. To fix this, you can make the GD Library your default image editor.

You can do this by simply adding this code to your WordPress theme’s functions.php file or using WPCode (recommended):

function wpb_image_editor_default_to_gd( $editors ) {
	$gd_editor = 'WP_Image_Editor_GD';
	$editors = array_diff( $editors, array( $gd_editor ) );
	array_unshift( $editors, $gd_editor );
	return $editors;
}
add_filter( 'wp_image_editors', 'wpb_image_editor_default_to_gd' );

For more details, you can see our guide on how to add custom code in WordPress.

After adding this code, you can retry uploading files using the media uploader. If this doesn’t solve the issue, then you can remove this code and try other methods described in this article.

Method 5: Use the .htaccess Method

This method allows you to control how Imagick uses server resources. Many shared hosting providers limit Imagick’s ability to use multiple threads for faster image processing. However, this will result in you seeing the HTTP error when uploading images.

An easy fix is to add the following code in your .htaccess file:

SetEnv MAGICK_THREAD_LIMIT 1

This code simply limits Imagick to use a single thread to process images.

Method 6: Update Your PHP Version

If your WordPress site is using an outdated version of PHP, then it could trigger the HTTP image upload error. This is because newer PHP versions have performance improvements and generally use less memory.

Luckily, it’s easy to check and update your site’s PHP version. For more details, please see our beginner’s guide on how to update your PHP version in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you fix the HTTP image upload error in WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them, along with our expert picks for the best email marketing services for small businesses.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

175 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
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  2. Sandy says

    I tried Option 3. Now my entire home page is blank. Individual pages are still there. The Sidebar is still visible, but the rest of the home page is blank.

    Please help if possible.

    Thank you,
    Sandy

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You may want to ensure you didn’t change your homepage settings while troubleshooting and have you removed the code to see if that solved the missing content?

      Admin

  3. Sanju says

    Worked like charm Option 3.

    While My wordpress admin panel is slow.. Working on it. Any guide?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You may want to try disabling your plugins to see if one of your plugins could be slowing the admin area.

      Admin

  4. Adriana says

    Hello,
    I have tried all of them steps, and none has worked, I am not sure what else to do at this point , as i’m on limited time and would need this fixed , if any other ideas please do help. Thank you so much

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You may want to reach out to your hosting provider to see if they see any errors on their end that could be causing the issue.

      Admin

  5. Tina says

    Hi,

    thanks for this guide. Unfortunately, all these ideas did not work for me. Today, in an attempt to remove the “website is on partially safe” SSL certificate message, I used “Search and Replace” plugin to search my databases for “http” and changed those to “https”. That’s the only thing I could relate to this error, but since I am no expert on this, I don’t know how and if I can fix this or how I can undo these changes. Any help?

  6. kyle says

    Hi i get the http error everytime i upload an image over 4mbs. I have contacted my web designer and host and they have both tried to load images over 15mbs and it is working for them. However, i have tried mulitple computers on different internet connections and i still get the http error. Can u please help?

  7. Hien says

    I just wanted to comment, #3 definitely helped with 503 error/http error when uploading pictures sometime. Other time, upload pictures fine.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would normally want to put added code at the end in case you need to edit or remove the code later

      Admin

  8. Mike Gaudreau says

    In my case, I simply logged out of the dashboard and right back in and the problem was cleared.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thanks for sharing that, it sounds like either your caching had a hiccup or you ran into one of the server issues :)

      Admin

  9. Mohamed says

    You can’t imagine the level stress of this HTTP thing has created on me. Number 3 is my lifesaver. Thank you for posting this.

  10. Janet says

    I had about 10 pictures to upload and repeatedly got the HTTP error for 3 of them. I finally sussed that those three had an apostrophe in the file name!!! Doh! Removing the apostrophe was the solution.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thanks for sharing your solution, glad you were able to get the files uploaded :)

      Admin

  11. Yann says

    3 worked for me too. I copied right at the end of function.php in Appearance > editor of WordPress

  12. Alissa says

    Before I tried any of these solutions. I tried logging out of WordPress and logging back in, and suddenly I stopped getting the error message. So, you might want to try that first.

  13. Isla S says

    I’ve noticed that this keeps happening to me with files that contain apostrophes in the filename. When I remove it, they upload fine

    Perhaps try to remove the ‘ ?

  14. Christina says

    None of these worked for me. After some more researching, I found that putting this bit of code at the bottom of the .htaccess worked for me:

    # Exclude the file upload and WP CRON scripts from authentication

    Satisfy Any
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Deny from none

    Don’t forget to back up your .htaccess file first just in case!

    • WPBeginner Support says

      These methods should work with localhost, the memory limit may need to be modified using the program for your server such as MAMP or WAMP

      Admin

  15. Omar Ajruli says

    Option number three fixed my problem guys, thank you. Have a great day.
    3. Change Image Editor Library Used by WordPress.

  16. Emmanuel Usen Jackson says

    My blog shows me “An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.”. Please what should I do?

  17. vishwas says

    i did all the above changes in my site still image is not uploading, please help me to resolve this issue (http error)

  18. David says

    For me, the issue was a series of pictures with an apostrophe in the title. Renamed and it worked fine.

  19. Tom Jaggard says

    I need help resolving the HTTP error when uploading large files. Someone else created my site with an upload size limit of 64Mb. I am trying to upload audio files that are sometimes larger than 64Mb. I added a plug-in (Upload Max File Size) to change my max upload size to 128Mb. I changed memory_limit in PHP.ini to 256M. I change max_execution_time in PHP.ini to 300. I set memory_limit in wp-config to 256M. I changed memory_limit in .htaccess to 256M. I tried adding the code to .htaccess to force it to use the GD Library instead of Imagick. It didn’t work, so I remove that code and then added the line to limit Imagick to 1 thread. In spite of all of these changes, I still get the HTTP error when loading a file larger than 64Mb.
    Any more ideas?
    Thanks!

  20. siddharth pathak says

    thanks a lot, I was trying to fix this from last 2 hour and after reading this article did it in just few sec and already tested thanks a lot

  21. Mauricio Lazo says

    As a side note, another thing that can be giving you HTTP errors while uploading images is a configuration in you php.ini file, specifically the line “max_execution_time=30;”.

    Some shared hosting providers limit PHP execution to a single core of the server, increasing the time it takes for PHP Imagick to get the image, process it and create thumbnails. So the suggestion is to increase max_execution_time to 120 seconds instead of the default 30 seconds.

  22. wassim jied says

    Hello
    In my case

    function wpb_image_editor_default_to_gd( $editors ) {
    $gd_editor = ‘WP_Image_Editor_GD’;
    $editors = array_diff( $editors, array( $gd_editor ) );
    array_unshift( $editors, $gd_editor );
    return $editors;
    }
    add_filter( ‘wp_image_editors’, ‘wpb_image_editor_default_to_gd’ );

    worked fine thanks

    Php Memory limit 128Mo v 7.13 apache 2.4

  23. Joost Walter says

    One of the causes of an upload error is the fact that there is an apostrophe in the name of the file that you try to upload. For instance a picture called ‘Let’s_dance.jpg’ will give an error, while ‘Lets_dance.jpg’ can be uploaded without any problems.

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