How to Fix the 413 Request Entity Too Large Error in WordPress

In this knowledgebase article, we’ll walk you through how to fix the 413 request entity too large error.

What does 413 Request Entity Too Large mean?

The 413 request entity too large error generally occurs when you try and upload either a theme or a plugin file that exceeds the maximum upload limit on your website.

If this happens then your web server will fail to upload the file and you notice the 413 request entity too large error. In most cases the WordPress hosting providers have their servers configured so that it is easy for you to upload large images and other media.

However, at times, this setting is not enough in order to upload the large files to the server.

Fixing 413 Request Entity Too Large Errors

You can implement the necessary changes mentioned below depending on which web server you use. You can set the threshold file size for which a user is allowed to upload a file and if that particular limit is over then they will receive a 413 Request Entity Too Large error.

1 For Nginx Users

For Nginx users, you need to edit the nginx.conf file located at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. The directive that determines the maximum accepted request size is  client_max_body_size.

The default value for this directive is 1M (1 megabyte) and if you do not wish to have a request size limit you can set the value to 0.

server {
    client_max_body_size 100M;
    ...
}

Once you have your desired value set, as shown above, save your changes and then reload Nginx with the help of the following command: 

service nginx reload.

2 For Apache Users

For Apache Web Servers, a directive called LimitRequestBody provides the same functionality as client_max_body_size. This directive can be defined in either your http.conf file or .htaccess file. The directive’s default value is 0 but you can set this value as per your choice.

For instance, if you want to restrict requests larger than 100 MB it would be as follows:

LimitRequestBody 104857600

Once you have made the necessary changes, save the configuration file and reload Apache with the help of the following command: 

service apache2 reload.

3 Increase Upload File Size Limit by Editing Your Functions.PHP File

Add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:

You can increase the values in upload_max_size and post_max_size to be more than the file you are trying to upload. Also, you need to increase the time for max_execution_time to the time that you think it might need for the file to be uploaded.

And that’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to fix the WordPress 413 request entity too large error.