Hi Julie,
Thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry to hear you’re running into a fatal error when activating WooCommerce.
The error message you shared suggests that your site is hitting the PHP memory limit during plugin activation. While you mentioned increasing memory, it’s possible that the change wasn’t applied correctly, or the new limit still isn’t high enough for WooCommerce to run.
Here are a few things to check:
- Go to WooCommerce → Status and check what is listed for WP Memory Limit. WooCommerce recommends at least 256 MB, but depending on your setup, increasing it to 512 MB might help.
- Make sure the memory change is applied properly. You can increase it by adding this line to your
wp-config.php file just before the line that says /* That’s all, stop editing! */:
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M');
Then check if the error still occurs.
- Some plugins or themes might be using excessive memory. If you’re able to access your admin area or use FTP/File Manager, try disabling all other plugins and switching to a default theme (like Storefront), then try activating WooCommerce again. More info: <u>https://woocommerce.com/document/how-to-test-for-conflicts/</u>
- If the issue persists, we recommend reaching out to your hosting provider to ensure they allow higher memory limits and to check if there are any server-side restrictions.
I hope that helps! Let me know once you have done a conflict test!
Hi @juliereader,
I understand how frustrating it is when your site crashes on activating WooCommerce, especially after trying several solutions like increasing memory and working with your host. No worries, I’ll help you dig deeper into this.
Since the error points to PHP running out of memory and it only happens when activating WooCommerce, it’s possible that something in your current environment is putting heavy strain during activation, such as a large database, heavy theme, or leftover WooCommerce data from a previous install.
To move forward, could you please share your System Status Report? Since you can’t activate WooCommerce to access it normally, you can use the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin to enable Troubleshooting Mode. This lets you activate WooCommerce in a safe environment with other plugins disabled and a default theme active, without affecting visitors. Also, using this tool, you can share your site info with us by going to “tools” under site health, then copy to clipboard.
But if you can activate WooCommerce in that safe mode, go to WooCommerce > Status, click Get system report, and paste the contents into https://pastebin.com. Then share the link here.
This will give us insight into your server environment, theme, and plugin setup so we can help pinpoint what might be overwhelming the memory during activation. Let’s see how it goes!
I’m going to mark this as resolved, as we haven’t heard back from you in a while. Please open a new thread if you need further assistance.
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