Fix the memory limit issue with Elementor and WordPress Hosting

If you own a WordPress hosting account, the chances are you install extensions onto it. One of the most popular extensions for users is Elementor. It is a visual page builder plugin built for WordPress that allows users to create and design professional-looking websites without the need for coding knowledge.

Managed WordPress plans are excellent ways to host a website – they provide enough storage for your website, and all at an affordable cost. This makes them a popular choice for people who want a cost-friendly start to their online journey. Furthermore, it is easy to install extensions such as Elementor and WooCommerce which allow you to develop a unique website specific to your business or brand.

What is the WordPress memory limit?

The first thing to clear up is that the WordPress memory limit is not the same as your storage limit. Storage is taken up by the files, extensions, and media products which you upload to your website. Your WordPress hosting provider will be able to tell you what these are. The memory limit on the other hand, refers to the server itself. Your website’s pages are created by something called PHP. This is the server-side-programming language which makes up everything on your WordPress website, including WordPress itself.

However, in order to process everything on your WordPress website, the PHP requires memory. The default memory limit on WordPress is 32MB, but it is recommended by WordPress that your memory limit is increased to 64MB, which won’t be enough for heavy and popular plugins such as Elementor.

Why is my Elementor builder not loading?

If you are trying to operate Elementor and are seeing a message reading “Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” or the ‘spinning wheel of death’ on the editors sidebar, this means that your WordPress memory limit isn’t high enough to process Elementor. This is because Elementor is a resource heavy programme and needs a lot more memory than 64MB in order to operate. The systems requirements for both Elementor and Elementor Pro are 256MB according to Elementor. If you want to increase the memory limit of your WordPress Hosting, you will need to edit this in your file manager or cPanel.

Increasing the memory limit of your WordPress website within your file manager.

If you are looking for a more detailed set of instructions for increasing your WordPress memory limit, you can find them here.

In most cases, your WordPress hosting will not allow you access to your cPanel, which is completely normal – as it is all taken care of by your hosting provider. This means that we need to access and edit a file in your hosting account called the wp-config.php. For this to work you need to:

• Locate the wp-config.php file in your managed WordPress account (you may need to go to your file manager to do this)
• Open the file and edit it
• Next, you want to find the line that reads:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */

• Directly above this line, paste in the following code:

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

• You can increase the ‘256M’ to the amount of memory that best suits your website (I personally prefer to use 512MB to be on the safe side).
• Remember to press save before you exit!

In any case where you can’t access the File Manager or wp-config.php file, then don’t panic because for some users, the file manager or wp-config.php file isn’t visible from your account. We have found a solution which is quick and easy so you can access your file manager directly from your WordPress Admin.

Increasing the memory limit of your WordPress website without access to your file manager.

That title is not entirely true, for this method to work, we still need to access your files which can be achieved through installing a plugin called WP File Manager.

How to install WP File Manager:

• Login to your dashboard.
• Navigate to Plugins, then press Add New
• Type into the search bar ‘WP File Manager’
• Install the plugin that looks like this:

• Once it has been installed, press activate.
• Now, navigate to the File Manager on the left hand side tab. You should see a menu that looks like this:

• Click on the file named wp-config.php as highlighted above.
• Then click on the highlighted icon along the top bar to open the file.
• Next, you want to find the line that reads:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */

• Directly above this line, paste in the following code:

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

• Save the file and go back to the WP File Manager dashboard. This should now have increased the memory limit.
• In order to test this, try and reproduce the error you originally got. If it still appears, try to clear your site caches and it should update.

Summary

Hopefully by now, you have increased your WordPress memory limit and therefore expelled the “Allowed Memory Size Exhausted” error. Whilst you may think this has been fixed, there is always the possibility it returns. If you install another heavy plugin onto your website in the future, do be in mind that there is always the possibility that it requires a higher memory limit. Although, it should now be a lot easier to fix this, as all you need to do it locate the code you added in, and increase the amount of megabytes accordingly. Problem solved!