Title: fatal error message….? Please help Last modified: August 18, 2016 --- # fatal error message….? Please help * 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/) * My site has suddenly decided not to display (although I can get onto the wordpress admin screens) and I am getting the following error message. Please help! I have checked that my host server is not having any problems and there doesn’t appear to be anything amiss. Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted( tried to allocate 2109049 bytes) in /home/sites/site165/web/wordpress/wp-includes/ links-update-xml.php on line 77 Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 140 bytes) in /home/sites/site165/web/wordpress/ wp-includes/functions.php on line 75 Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total) * Thread Starter 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117252) * ahem it has righted itself. panic over. * Thread Starter 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117434) * and now it has been offline for over an hour and is producing the same message again. Can anybody explain to me what is going on? * Thread Starter 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117442) * I have 50 megabytes of memory in my webpack. I’ve contacted the host. This is way over my head. * Thread Starter 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117849) * ok, here goes. After several attempts to get my host to look at the site while this error was actually happening, I now have an answer from them, but one which I don’t quite understand how to implement. Looking at the file: [http://paris61.amenworld.com/test.php](http://paris61.amenworld.com/test.php) it is clear that the memory_limit assigned is 8388608. And wordpress sometimes needs more than this for some reason. I am told that I can use the following script to modify this value: @ini_set(“memory_limit”,’10M’); Where 10M is the new memory limit. My question is how/where do I input this value? Into the offending wordpress files which seem to encounter the problem? i.e. links-update-xml.php and functions.php Somewhere else? My host is not very helpful unless you pay for support, and I thought I would probably get better (and more wordpress specific) help from you guys than from their forum, where I post questions and am greeted with general indifference. Thank you in advance for any help you can give… * [TechGnome](https://wordpress.org/support/users/techgnome/) * (@techgnome) * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117850) * I realize it’s been a number of years since I’ve been in school, but the numbers do not make any sense to me. * > Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate > 2109049 bytes) in /home/sites/site165/web/wordpress/wp-includes/links-update- > xml.php on line 77 > Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted( > tried to allocate 140 bytes) in /home/sites/site165/web/wordpress/wp-includes/ > functions.php on line 75 * If I read that right, there’s an upper limit of roughly 8Mb…. but in the first error, you are only trying to allocate 2.1Mb… clearly less than the max of 8. And in the second one, it’s only allocating 140 bytes….. not even a full K there! Me thinks something is up with their server. Tg * Thread Starter 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117851) * Well yes I thought that too. And then I thought maybe it meant in addition to whatever it was already allocating… I know nothing about servers and php though. * [Cypher](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cypher/) * (@cypher) * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117852) * For starters, you can add the line: ` @ini_set("memory_limit",'10M'); into your wp-config.php file which gets included only once by the wp-blog-header.php file. That will extend the limit to 10 meg, but I don’t think that’s going to solve your problem immediately. You might have to keep using larger values until the problem completely disappears. As far as the error messages go, it seems a little confusing and I think I can understand TechGnome’s confusion..:) The issue is that PHP is telling you that it’s already used up 8MB and you are asking for, the first time, 2.1 MB and 140 bytes the second time. It isn’t trying to allocate those 2 amounts from the 8MB total, but rather from beyond that 8MB. So making setting the memory_limit to 10MB will almost make the first allocation request go through, but that might fail as well. But a value of 12MB might make both those requests happy, but what happens when whatever is the real culprit consuming all the memory does so again with 12MB?? My webhost is running PHP v4.3.9 and there is no memory_limit variable at all. This might indicate to PHP that there is no limit. Hope I explained things, rather than cause more confusion. I can explain more/better if need be, being a software engineer. 🙂 Regards * [TechGnome](https://wordpress.org/support/users/techgnome/) * (@techgnome) * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117853) * That makes sense. I had throught aboout that just after I posted it. Thanks for clearing it up. But at least it’s clearer than messages I’ve had to deal with—“ Unspecified error.” Tg * [Cypher](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cypher/) * (@cypher) * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117854) * OK..I think I might know what is causing your problem. Looking at the file that is the crux of your issue ‘links-update-xml.php’ it looks like the function is getting a XML file from weblogs.com of changed blogs. It is then going through this XML file and stripping out characters. If the file you got is large, > 8 MB, then you’re gonna run into this problem. So as the list grows, you’re going to have to conitnue to raise your memory_limit. Unless you REALLY want this update feature, I would strongly suggest disabling it. I looked in my OPTIONS section under Admin panel on WP 1.2.1 and I didn’t see anything about this, not sure where you can disable it, but you might try that. Regards * [Cypher](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cypher/) * (@cypher) * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117855) * In response to my own wondering about where this stuff was in the Admin section. I think you have weblogs.com in the Update Services section under Options->Writing. Regards * Thread Starter 5330 * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117856) * Right, thanks for the advice. It never ceases to amaze me how much more helpful you guys are than my host whom I PAY good money to. Ho hum. I’ve disabled the ping and put the line in wp-config. Does it matter where in that file I put it? I’ll post here to let anyone who is interested know the outcome as I don’t suppose I’ll be alone encountering this problem… * [Cypher](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cypher/) * (@cypher) * [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117857) * I would first try just disabling the PING and see if it causes the problem to go away. Without that particular piece of code running, 8 MB should be more than enough. But if you really want to bump the memory_limit ot 10MB, you can put the line anywhere in the wp-config file. No problem. Regards Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total) The topic ‘fatal error message….? Please help’ is closed to new replies. * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 12 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [Cypher](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cypher/) * Last activity: [21 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-message-please-help/#post-117857) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics