WordPress Memory Errors and the PHP Memory Limit Print

What you're seeing

Your site shows a message like "Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted," or a page goes blank partway through loading, or the admin area fails on a particular task like updating or importing. These are memory errors: WordPress asked for more memory than it was allowed, and stopped.

Every WordPress site runs within a memory limit, a ceiling on how much it can use to build a page. Most sites stay comfortably under it and you never think about it. You meet it when the site grows, a heavy plugin arrives, or a memory-hungry task like a big import runs, and the site bumps its head on the ceiling.

What it means, and what it doesn't

A memory error is usually a sign of one of two things: either your site genuinely needs a higher limit because it has grown, or something, often a specific plugin, is using far more memory than it should. It does not mean your site is broken or your content is lost, it means a limit was reached, and limits can be raised or the cause addressed.

What you can safely try yourself

1. Work out whether a plugin is the cause. If the errors started right after installing or updating a particular plugin, that plugin is the prime suspect. Test with plugins deactivated, as our article on deactivating plugins describes, and if the errors vanish, reactivate one at a time to find the greedy one. Sometimes the fix is simply a better-behaved plugin, not a higher limit.
2. Clear your caches and retry, to be sure you are seeing the current state of the site and not a stored error, as our caching article covers.
3. Check whether the site has genuinely grown. If you have added a lot of plugins, a heavy theme, or a large store, the site may legitimately need more memory than it once did, which is a signal rather than a fault.

That is the safe DIY boundary, and it is a deliberate one. The actual raising of the memory limit is the next part, and it is where we would rather you let us help.

Raising the limit is our side of the line

The PHP memory limit is raised by editing configuration files, wp-config.php, or PHP settings at the server, and this is exactly the kind of file-level change where a small mistake causes a bigger problem than the one you started with. On our hosting, the memory available to your site is also tied to your plan and its resources, so raising it is not purely a matter of editing a line, it involves what your account actually allows.

So rather than walk you into editing core configuration files, we would rather you open a support ticket. Tell us the exact error and what you were doing when it appeared, and we will either raise the limit appropriately or, if the real issue is a misbehaving plugin or a site that has outgrown its plan, tell you that plainly instead of just papering over it with more memory.

When more memory isn't the real answer

Raising the limit is sometimes right, and sometimes a sticking plaster. If a single plugin is devouring memory through a bug or poor design, the honest fix is that plugin, not endlessly feeding it more. And if your whole site has outgrown what your plan provides, repeatedly nudging limits is a sign it is time to consider a larger plan or a VPS, as our articles on choosing a plan and on VPS hosting cover. Part of why we prefer to handle memory limits with you is so we can tell which situation you are actually in, rather than quietly raising a ceiling that will only be hit again next month.

Good to know

A memory error is WordPress telling you something specific, that a limit was reached, and the useful response is to find out why rather than just raise the number. Often it is one plugin, occasionally it is real growth, and knowing which saves you money and trouble. So treat a memory error as a diagnostic clue, do the safe checks above to narrow it down, and let us handle the actual change, that way the fix addresses the cause and not just the symptom.