Fix WordPress memory error when upgrading

With the issuing of WordPress 2.8.3 and 2.8.4 a lot of people have run into the dreaded “Allowed memory size error” when you try to run the automatic upgrade for your WordPress. (you did backup everything, just in case, yes?)

Did you get an error something like “Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate …yadda yadda)”?  This is likely caused by “too much stuff” in your WordPress, like lots of plugins.

There are a few things to do to try to get past this.

1.) Deactivate most or all of your plugins and then try the automatic upgrade again. That should help most people.

If you are more technically inclined or have someone who can do this for you (like me! )…

2.) In your WordPress root find the “wp-settings.php” file and find this line (around line 13)  “define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘32M’);”  and increase the memory size to something larger, like  “define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’);” . Now try upgrading again.

And if that doesn’t fix it so that you can upgrade… Try this!

3.) Find the “php.ini” for your site (this is not a wordpress file, but one from your webhost – you may need to ask them how to make the change, if it’s not readily available to you) and change it to something larger like this  “memory_limit = 128M”

You should now be able to successfully upgrade your WordPress!