How to fix WordPress Memory Exhausted Error

The first thing you need to do is to log into your WordPress files through your FTP client (like FileZilla). Remember to get your username and password from your host. This will be different from your WordPress login details that get you access to the main dashboard.

Now look in your WordPress root folder and find the wp-config.php file. Right-click on the document and open it up in an edit mode.

Now post in this line before the final line that states: ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’

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

This will increase the memory limit of your WordPress website to 256M, which is four times as large as the default. You can go further, but this is usually unnecessary.

Now you can save and re-upload the wp-config.php file, ensuring the original is overwritten.

Ensure that the cache in your browser has been deleted and then check to see if your website now works. If it does, the problem has been solved.

If you still get an error, you might have a plugin causing the problem. To solve this you need to disable the plugins and reactivate them one at a time to find the culprit. This one can then be disabled again and removed from your website.

To do this, you need to go to the plugins file in your WordPress files, using an FTP client and then change the name of the plugins file to ‘plugins_disable‘. Then, immediately rename the file to ‘plugins‘ again.

This will disable all the plugins. Check your website now. It should display, but it will not have many of the features.

You can do the same with the themes if you are having a problem with a theme.

If you notice your website is back on and displaying, it is a plugin/theme causing a problem. You can switch them on, one at a time, to find out which one is causing the problem. You can do this in the dashboard.