Are you seeing an allowed memory size exhausted error in WordPress? This is one of the most common WordPress errors, and you can easily fix it by increasing the php memory limit in WordPress. In this article, we will show you how to fix WordPress memory exhausted error by increasing PHP memory.
What is WordPress Memory Exhausted Error?
WordPress is written in PHP, which is a server-side programming language. Every website needs a WordPress hosting server for it to function properly.
Web servers are just like any other computer. They need memory to efficiently run multiple applications at the same time. Server administrators allocate specific memory size to different applications including PHP.
When your WordPress code requires more memory than the default allocated memory, you get to see this error.
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2348617 bytes) in /home4/xxx/public_html/wp-includes/plugin.php on line xxx
By default, WordPress automatically tries to increase PHP memory limit if it is less than 64MB. However, 64MB is often not high enough.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily increase PHP memory limit in WordPress to avoid memory exhausted error.
Increase PHP Memory Limit in WordPress
First you need to edit the wp-config.php file on your WordPress site. It is located in your WordPress site’s root folder, and you will need to use an FTP client or file manager in your web hosting control panel.
Next, you need to paste this code in wp-config.php file just before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’
define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
This code tells WordPress to increase the PHP memory limit to 256MB.
Once you are done, you need to save your changes and upload your wp-config.php file back to your server.
You can now visit your WordPress site and memory exhausted error should disappear now.
If you are new to WordPress, then take a look at our beginners guide on how to copy and paste code from the web.
We also have a step by step guide on how to find and edit wp-config.php file.
Note: If this solution does not work for you, then this means your web hosting service provider does not allow WordPress to increase PHP memory limit. You will need to ask your web hosting provider to increase your PHP memory limit manually.
That’s all we hope this article helped you solve WordPress memory exhausted error by increasing PHP memory limit. You may also want to see our step-by-step beginner’s guide to troubleshooting WordPress errors.
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There needs to be a way to figure out these memory issues without taking the entire site offline or risking breaking the configuration by disabling essential components. Furthermore, the errors are occurring even when the memory limit is set to the maximum physical memory on the server (32GB) and while they are occurring there is no actual spike in memory usage (system utilities are reporting no increase in actual physical memory use.
You could create a staging site or download your site to a local version: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-move-live-wordpress-site-to-local-server/
You could also reach out to your hosting provider to see if they have any errors on their end that they can see.
Useless when the issue does not depend on actual required memory – in my case it keeps giving the error for random plugins no matter how much memory I specify (up to 32GB). Would be nice to know an actual troubleshooting method to see what is using the memory.
For the steps involved in troubleshooting, you would want to follow our article here:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-to-troubleshooting-wordpress-errors-step-by-step/
Correct Solution for me…..Thank You So much wpbeginer
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Solved. Many Many thanks bro
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I love you ! you’re a life saver !
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I wish I known that earlier. Now | lost a lot of traffic for my site.
Hopefully it is fixed now!
Hope our article helped you resolve the problem
Done (y) nice work
thank you
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Thank you so much. That worked great for me!
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Worked Great! Thanks!
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Great! It works well. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome
Dead on !! Thanks a lot.
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thanks! perfect now!
You’re welcome
IT’s working
Thanks a lot.
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It works, thank you <3
The error was:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 491520 bytes) in…
Glad our article could help
Thank you, this helped me alot to kikstart in learning woocommerce
Glad our guide could help
Thank you so, so, so, sooooooooooo, so much! I guess as I add more posts to the database it requires more memory to operate. Various things were breaking with this internal error over the course of a couple of years, but since I could still make new posts I just said to myself, “meh, carry on.”
Then I could no longer post! Panic! Everybody PANIC!!!
I enabled debug mode. I got my debug report. I saw the memory exhausted reported. Then I found this page and gave it a try, thinking, “This probably won’t work. I’ve made too many changes to the theme and some of the plugins to work the way I want. Something somewhere got MuNgEd.
Nope. Not at all. This one line of code solved it and got be back up and RUNNING!!!! Yay for me!!!! YAY FOR YOU!!!!
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Thanks, it worked for me
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That’s worked with me. Thanks a million
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And if you have same problem in admin page you can also try
define( ‘WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘512M’ );
Administration tasks require much memory than usual operation. When in the administration area, the memory can be increased or decreased from the WP_MEMORY_LIMIT by defining WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT.
WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT sets the maximum just on admin pages. It’s a terrible naming scheme but it dates back to WordPress 2.5 and nobody dares change it now
Thanks for adding this information for other users
Thank you so much. It works very fine.
Hi Aniekan,
Glad you found it helpful.
Thank you so much for this quick and easy fix!
Glad our guide was helpful
Thanks man
Thank you very much. It really worked.
Thank you Thank you Thank you!
A novice fixed this problem with your help! Thanks again
You are welcome
I have tried this, and now my entire admin panel and website are down, all blocked by that 500 error…. I cannot access anything anymore, and therefore can’t use the File Manager again to remove the change. I’m completely lost, any chance you can help me?
Hi Laura,
If you have access to cPanel dashboard then you can undo the changes from the file manager section there. Alternately, you can contact your hosting provider to help you fix this.
i have to use wpml plugin issue is english language text editor working properly but when i text german or spanish language (secndery languages ) text editor cant showing on secndery languages text editor so ghow to fix that problem
I contacted my hosting company and requested them to increase my PHP memory, this resolved the issue.
works like magic.. keep doing the good work
Thanks A Lot ! Saved me.
Happy to help
Help! i have this problem
Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 10489856 bytes)
Hi Jonathan,
Please see our article on how to increase php memory limit in WordPress.
Gracias !!!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! VERY Helpful!
Thank you very much
My issues got solved completely based on your detailed information and help.
many many thanks
Majid
I’m not as good at this stuff as I need to be, so I’m still struggling with this.
I open the config.php file and there is a part that says:
define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ );
only it already says:
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘1024M’);
I’ve changed that to 2048 and 4096 with no change.
But there is no ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’
after the
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘1024M’);
it says
define(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);
then
# That’s It. Pencils down
It does say ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’ in the Sample config.php but not in the actual one.
Any advice?
Thank you this worked perfectly!
Thanks…just moved from Joomla to WordPress and hit this issue. Thanks for the easy fix.
You are genius. Thanks A Lot ! Saved me.
You are a life saver. I was about to start throwing breakable objects.
Omg, this fixed it! THANK YOU!!!
Thanks for sharing this information, it really helped me to fix word press website.
It’s 1:53AM and because of you, I can sleep in peace now. THANK YOU!
define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ ); worked all time. Thank a lot for the solution.
you guys are amazing you solved most of the issues i encounter since started working with WordPress.
It worked for me. Thanks!
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 22 bytes) in /home/nels1max/public_html/ngifts/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 286
I’ve tried to expand my limit but it didn’t work. When I refresh the page, it changes what’s after “/wp-includes/” and the line number, but none of those files have a place to expand the size. Any tips?
Try increasing it to 512M. There still isn’t enough memory for whatever theme you’re running. Good luck! P.S. make sure that you have more than 512M of memory. Ask your hosting provider.
Great! It worked. Thank you so much !!!
Thank you so much for sharing this. Helped me a lot!
It works! Thanks for the suggestion. But I have a question. I find another article said that changes WP_MEMORY_LIMIT in default-constants.php. Is there any different between this two methods?
I have the same question. Can you explain the difference? Why use one over the other?
The constants file is for settings that don’t change, editing the config file is where you would make changes that can be reverted later when you are no longer receiving the error.
Thank you very much for this fix.
I was already freaking out…
Thanks man. iT’S REALLY HELPS