This means that your server is stopping the import or export process before it can complete. WP All Import processes records piece by piece to help prevent this from happening. WP All Export also has a setting that exports a certain amount of records during each iteration to prevent terminated exports.

Sometimes you can prevent your server from terminating the import or export simply by lowering the records per iteration. Other times the reason for the termination has nothing to do with the records per iteration.

No matter the cause, the troubleshooting process always starts the same:

Lower the records per iteration. You can control how many records are processed in each iteration in the import/export Settings. Locate the Advanced Options and then change the number of records processed in each iteration. If your import/export is still being terminated with 1 record per iteration, then you’ll need to modify your server settings, so it will allow WP All Import or WP All Export to run.

Replicate on /debug. You can replicate your import or export on our testing environment (https://www.wpallimport.com/debug/) to validate that everything works as expected in a fresh environment. If the issue doesn't happen there, it means that the problem is specific to your site's environment. If the issue still happens on /debug, you can contact us and send us that debug site's URL so that we investigate further.

Contact your host and have them check your server’s error log. They will be able to see exactly why your server is terminating the import/export, and they will know exactly how to fix it. There isn’t anything we can do to help until your host has checked the error log and we know exactly what the issue is.

Server Timeouts

Servers have a number of settings that place hard limits on how long processes are allowed to run before they are terminated.

There are two very common hard limits that our users run into:

Maximum Execution Time (PHP): This is set in php.ini with max_execution_time. It determines how long a process is allowed to run before it’s terminated. You can ask your host to increase the limit, but this should be considered a last resort.

FCGID Timeouts (Apache): This is set in httpd.conf with FcgidIOTimeout.It determines how long mod_fcgid will wait while trying to perform a read or write. It should be set as high as your host will allow. In our experience, 90 seconds is sufficient.

Server Errors

When servers are misconfigured or trying to do things that require more resources than are available, they will throw an error. The error message is usually just a 3-digit number. The number can give you some information about the nature of the error. For example:

500 Internal Server Error: This often occurs when something in your WordPress theme or one of the plugins has some sort of issue.

503 Service Unavailable: This often occurs when the server is overloaded. It can also indicate that the security system on your server is blocking WP All Import or WP All Export.

504 Gateway Timeout: This is often related to the server being overloaded.

524 A Timeout Occurred: This error happens due to Cloudflare. It indicates that the origin web server was reached, but it did not provide an HTTP response before the default 100-second connection timeout. You can learn more here.

Our support team will not be able to help you troubleshoot these errors. You will need to contact your host to check your server's error log.

Check Your Server's Error Log

You say I need to ask my host to check the server's error logs... but what exactly am I supposed to do here?

You'll need to contact your host's support team, and ask them to look for entries around the time the error occurred. To help your host's support team, be sure to include the following information in your support request:

• The approximate time of the error (including timezone). If you're not sure when it occurred, please take the steps necessary to reproduce the error.
• Your IP address. Visit http://www.whatismyip.com/ for help.
• A screenshot of the error, including the URL in your browser.

That will put them in a much better position to give you those entries.

My host just pointed me to my error log file, can't I just send that file to you?

No. Just sending us the entire error log file isn't useful, as there's no way to tell which log entries are relevant to the error you encountered.

But my host says that there's nothing in the error logs!

If your server is throwing errors, it is your host's responsibility to make sure it is logged. If your host is unable to find any relevant entries in the error, have them make sure that error logging is enabled and that they are checking the relevant error log. There are usually at least three places errors are logged on your server:

• The error logs for PHP
• The error logs for your web server (e.g. Apache, NGINX)
• The error logs for the database (e.g. MySQL, MariaDB)

We will not be able to help you find, read, or interpret your server's error log. Even if we were able to do so, you'd still need to contact your host to make the necessary changes to resolve the error. This is why you pay for hosting, and problems like these are where good hosts stand out from bad ones.

If the support tech you're talking with doesn't see anything, you may need to:

• Try contacting their support via a different means (e.g., phone).
• Politely ask to be escalated to a higher level of support.

My host can't/won't help! What do I do?

If you've run into an unfortunate situation where your host can't help with getting you the error logs, you can try enabling WordPress's error-logging measures. It's only going to give PHP errors, but in your case, perhaps that's enough.

Please see this section for more on how to enable WordPress's debugging measures: https://wordpress.org/support/article/debugging-in-wordpress/#example-wp-config-php-for-debugging

Once you've enabled them, please take the necessary steps to reproduce the error, and note down when it occurred (as advised previously). Then, please send us the entries that you found from around that time.

Note: Error log entries are usually in UTC time. You can use a tool like this: http://everytimezone.com/ – to compare your timezone with UTC time.

If you have followed all the steps so far and are still unable to find any errors, you can use a special tool that we have to log any hidden errors. It's called error-revealer, and you can obtain it using that link. Make sure to revert the changes done to your wp-config.php file and remove the mu-plugin after you've logged the corresponding error.

Is there anything else I should know here?

Yes. If at any point you have a problem with this... tell us this in your reply, don't be shy. 🙂

It's hard to offer support when it's not clear whether you've taken the steps laid out here, and communication is crucial, as we want to get this resolved for you as quickly as possible.

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For a list of hosts that work great with WP All Import and WP All Export, see our recommended hosts page.