[jah]

I can't seem to get WordPress to do its automatic update thing. You should be able to upgrade WP itself automatically, but I keep getting errors. Right now the error is:

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.zip

Unpacking the core update

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 271127 bytes) in /home/knoxjon/public_html/travelingatgodspeed.com/wp-admin/includes/class-pclzip.php on line 4067

I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, but I'm not finding anything to help me here (might be searching the wrong terms?) either here or on wordpress.org - which indicates it's a problem I am having, not a problem within WP.

I don't know if it's related, but WP does automatic updating of plugins, too, and I can only get them to work about half of the time, and it's the same plugins that fail each time - usually bringing down the server itself.

And yes, I can update manually via ftp, but I maintain several sites, and I don't have the time/patience for that headache when there is a built-in easy button.

Any help?

[djbaxter]

The problem is just as the error message says: You are running out of allocated RAM before the process can complete.

The solution is probably to upgrade to a VPS. If you can't do that, you're stuck with manual upgrades.

[jah]

I didn't know if that was RAM or what.

It seems like a very basic thing that tens of thousands of blogs on other hosts do, to automatically upgrade their WP installation. Shared hosting is the norm, not VPS.

This is very disappointing to hear.

The problem is just as the error message says: You are running out of allocated RAM before the process can complete.

The solution is probably to upgrade to a VPS. If you can't do that, you're stuck with manual upgrades.

According to the WordPress codex, ASO can do this. And I don't think they are talking about VPS. You don't need VPS for blogging.

http://codex.wordpre...t_Compatibility

I didn't know if that was RAM or what.

It seems like a very basic thing that tens of thousands of blogs on other hosts do, to automatically upgrade their WP installation. Shared hosting is the norm, not VPS.

This is very disappointing to hear.

The problem is just as the error message says: You are running out of allocated RAM before the process can complete.

The solution is probably to upgrade to a VPS. If you can't do that, you're stuck with manual upgrades.

[djbaxter]

Well, I'm not tech support here. However, please note

1. that I didn't say you needed VPS for blogging - I said you may need it for using that specific feature of WordPress, viz. automatic upgrades; and

2. the WordPress Codex doesn't specifiy what sort of ASO hosting handles automatic upgrades - just that you can do it with ASO hosting.

The bottom line is that yoiu are running out of RAM when you try to do the automatic upgrades. I suggest you submit a support ticket and ask for options from ASO tech support. For the most part, what you'll get here is peer-to-peer support, not the official ASO line.

[jah]

Turns out that this is easily fixable, I just hadn't come up with the right search combination for WP's forum.

I just had to add define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M'); to the .htaccess.

(ASO actually limits at 32, so I guess I could've put in 32, but I copy/pasted.)

I don't understand what just happened, but I'm relieved that there was a fix after all.

Well, I'm not tech support here. However, please note

1. that I didn't say you needed VPS for blogging - I said you may need it for using that specific feature of WordPress, viz. automatic upgrades; and

2. the WordPress Codex doesn't specifiy what sort of ASO hosting handles automatic upgrades - just that you can do it with ASO hosting.

The bottom line is that yoiu are running out of RAM when you try to do the automatic upgrades. I suggest you submit a support ticket and ask for options from ASO tech support. For the most part, what you'll get here is peer-to-peer support, not the official ASO line.

[IBBoard]

33554432 bytes is 32MB, so you were hitting the standard 32MB memory limit that is designed to stop the scripts of users of a shared hosting environment running away with too many resources. Personally, I'd be a bit concerned that an automatic update is regularly trying to use more than that! I guess it works, but I'm not sure of what side effects it may have on a shared hosting environment if everyone did it. If ASO have their own limit then I guess it won't make much, but then it wouldn't work either!

According to a quick bit of poking I did WP can need more, but PHP5 defaults to 16MB!

[[ASO] Frank]

The amount of memory used by wordpress (upgrades included) is directly relative to the plugins you have installed. Certain plugins are known to eat up a lot of RAM. I delt with a ticket the other day where a customer was getting that error even after overriding the memory_limit to 512MB. (Do not do this, we will see it)

[jah]

Wait, I can override the memory limit? Is that what I did above?

The new WP upgrade script is supposed to disable the plugins before upgrade, thereby doing away with the plugin/memory issue. That's what I've read, anyway.

The amount of memory used by wordpress (upgrades included) is directly relative to the plugins you have installed. Certain plugins are known to eat up a lot of RAM. I delt with a ticket the other day where a customer was getting that error even after overriding the memory_limit to 512MB. (Do not do this, we will see it)

[lyteforce]

I've actually noticed for some time that I've not always been able to use the automatic upgrade option for plugins, although it usually just hangs and populates a blank screen. However, when I tried to use the automatic upgrade option to go to WordPress 2.8, I received the same message and since then, have found that after using the same plugin setup as before the upgrade, the error message is a frequent occurrence. I have been able to "fix" the issue by disabling certain plugins, but find the problem reappears (including in the Dashboard) soon thereafter.

[rickygips]

I never thought that would such be a problem. Now I know what to do when it happens to me next time.

[war59312]

The bug that caused this issue in the first place is fixed in WP 2.8.1:

http://wordpress.org...s-2-8-1-beta-2/

As I noted back a month ago: http://forums.asmall...amp;#entry80111

This post has been edited by war59312: 03 July 2009 - 12:04 PM

[Th3 ProphetMan]

If its a WordPress bug it's not resolved, i'm getting it now and i have 2.8.1

And not to perform and automatic update. I see it even before it finishes to render some adimin pages like dash board on plugins page.

I heard this was happening on many servers though. I guess i'll try overriding the limit because otherwise i'm quite screwed.

[Lars]

I have the exact same problem,

Wordpress has become very memory hungry in the latest versions, is there any way to bump up the memory with only a couple of MB, at normal use the blog only uses around 25 mb, but updating and blogging from Windows Live Writer is a no go for me anymore, because of this memory issue :/

[Erin]

Th3 ProphetMan, on 18 July 2009 - 12:59 AM, said:

If its a WordPress bug it's not resolved, i'm getting it now and i have 2.8.1

And not to perform and automatic update. I see it even before it finishes to render some adimin pages like dash board on plugins page.

I heard this was happening on many servers though. I guess i'll try overriding the limit because otherwise i'm quite screwed.

If you haven't upgraded or are still looking to do the automatic upgrade, just deactivate all of your plugins, upgrade, then activate them again. It worked well for me when I was getting the fatal error message (although I believe the newest upgrade is suppose to fix that issue altogether).