Title: cache runaway storage ? Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # cache runaway storage ? * Resolved [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/) * I’m running WordFence 5.0.6 with Falcon Engine on a WordPress site which was automatically updated from 3.9 to 3.9.1 about 24 hours ago. * Really happy with the performance but I just got a warning from my hosting provider that I had exceeded my storage quota. * cPanel told me wfcache size: 562.57MB (589901824 bytes) * I have a 1.2TB allowance so wfcache was using nearly half. * As this is a production site I was worried that functions might start failing, so I quickly cleared the Wordfence cache without attempting any debugging. * Could a crawler which tried to visit every page of my site have caused the cache to grow so large? Is there a way to limit the size of the wfcache? * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/) Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) * Plugin Author [Mark Maunder](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmaunder/) * (@mmaunder) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897586) * Hi Adrian, * Thanks for the feedback. Can you tell me a bit more about your site? Do you have a lot of pages? Are some of them very large? I’d like to understand how the cache could grow that large. * If you can share the URL of the site I’d like to take a look at the public website. * Regards, * Mark. * Thread Starter [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897607) * Thanks The website is [http://compton.parish.hants.gov.uk](http://compton.parish.hants.gov.uk) * wfcache now contains a lot of files which seem to have been generated from 404s. When I open one of the cache files I end up at a page like this [http://compton.parish.hants.gov.uk/?s=cat+ids~95%2C98%2C97%2C96%2C94&search_404=1](http://compton.parish.hants.gov.uk/?s=cat+ids~95%2C98%2C97%2C96%2C94&search_404=1) * Up till recently I had been using the All-In-1-events calendar (ai1ec) plugin to imbed events from several public google calendars. But I recently removed it from my system because it had never handled repeating gcal events completely correctly, it affected page load times, and updates had caused problems. * I suspect, but I don’t know, that various search engines may have been trying to update ai1ec pages which they had once cached and which were no longer available. * I cleared the cache nearly 12 hours ago. Since then, about 141MB of cached pages have been added under the wfcache directory compton.parish.hants.gov.uk_diary * So I’ve added /diary/ as a cache exclusion, which seems to have cleared the cache. I’ll watch to see what happens to the cache now. * Thread Starter [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897624) * well – overnight the cache has grown to 80MB, which is a big reduction from the rate at which it was growing previously. * I’m really delighted with the performance of the Falcon engine, but concerned about cache size. Is there, or do you intend to implement, some kind of max- cache-size parameter? * The pages on my site are all rather large, because I took the design decision that users should be able to access as much information as possible with a very few clicks. This decision could be revisited. * I’d like to be able to avoid reloading the heavy right navbar (which doesn’t change between pages). Any ideas? * Thread Starter [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897628) * Well I’ve reluctantly turned off the falcon engine and am now using the Wordfence basic caching option. * Before re-enabling Falcon I’ll need to spend time adding lots of directories to the exclusion list, to try to prevent the cache becoming too large * Plugin Author [Mark Maunder](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmaunder/) * (@mmaunder) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897630) * Hi Adrian, * Thanks for this report. We’ve found the issue and has fixed it. The fix will be in the next release which will be out in less than 7 days. In the mean time please clear the cache using the cache clearing function and temporarily disable Falcon until the new release is out. * Regards, * Mark. * Thread Starter [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897632) * Many thanks. As stated above, I’ve already downgraded to basic caching. I’ll continue to keep an eye on the growth of the cache and await the next release. * Thread Starter [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897640) * Monitoring the basic (non-falcon) cache overnight I’ve seen some large directories appear. * Could there be a loop somewhere? * here’s the path to one of the cached files in one of those large directories …/ wfcache/compton.parish.hants.gov.uk_parish-council/governance-documents~e-documents ~minutes~a.share-facebook~/a.share-facebook/a.share-google-plus-1/a.share-facebook/ a.share-facebook/_wfcache.html * I’m going to add /parish-council/governance-documents to my exclusion list * Thread Starter [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * (@adriandw) * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897644) * The cache is now filling up with lots of files of the form * ../wp-content/wfcache/compton.parish.hants.gov.uk_wp-content/plugins~table-of- contents-plus~~~_wfcache.html and ../wp-content/wfcache/compton.parish.hants. gov.uk_wp-content/themes~magnitudo~~~_wfcache.html * I would guess someone is probing the site and receiving a lot of 404s. Because WordPress is trying to be helpful each 404 generates a unique error page so a unique cache entry. * So that’s something else to add to the exclusion list except I can’t afford to keep monitoring the cache for runaway conditions so I will turn caching off till the next release you promised in an earlier post. * I hope this information has been useful. Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) The topic ‘cache runaway storage ?’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/wordfence/assets/icon.svg?rev=2070865) * [Wordfence Security - Firewall, Malware Scan, and Login Security](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordfence/reviews/) * 8 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Adrian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adriandw/) * Last activity: [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cache-runaway-storage/#post-4897644) * Status: resolved