Hi Folks,
I’m now reasonably convinced I was simply running out of memory. Upping the PHP memory_limit from 32M to 64M seems to have solved the problem.
In this case throwing memory at the problem (and thus more money via a more expensive Cloud Server configuration) made things work. I’m aghast at how much a memory pig WP is.
For the moment, WP solves more problems than it creates so I stick with it.
Memory… WP just can’t get enough of it it seems.
John