memory_limit for db-dump

[wwwFrank]

Describe the bug
After update to BackWPup 5.6.6 the database-backup failed.

To Reproduce
Backup Database

Expected behavior
Export SQL-Dump includes in tar-file.

Additional context
PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 49152 bytes) in /usr/www/users/***/wp/wp-includes/class-wpdb.php on line 2328
PHP 8.5
memory_limit = 128M worked well until last upgrade.
memory_limit = 192M is now not enough. It is the maximum my provider allows.

[saranshj4]

Hi,

Thank you for reporting this.

Could you please reach out to us directly by opening a support request here:

https://backwpup.com/contact/

After submitting the form, you will receive a confirmation email (double opt-in). Once you confirm it, the ticket will be created and our support team will be able to investigate this with you more closely.

Looking forward to your message so we can help troubleshoot this further.

[saranshj4]

Hi @wwwFrank,

I followed up on your ticket but there's seems to be an issue with email delivery. Here's the screenshot of the reply:

[wwwFrank]

Hi Saransh,
I got a mail from github, so my mail-adress is known there. Although I reworked my mail-settings, hope it works now.

Sorry, I don't give admin-access to my website. This github-entry is visible for everyone. I can't control, who is writing me and what is done with the access.

I also described the error on https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-php_memory_limit-in-backwpup-5-6-6/
and saw some similar entries there. But - different to github - I can't commend an issue that seems to describe the same bug. I have to open my own issue there. But there are other issues describing the same error.

Me-Too-Coments are removed, see https://wordpress.org/support/topic/errors-with-version-5-6-6/#post-18846516

Today I tried again to make a backup, using "minimum"-settings. After failure I used the "Contact Support"-button in the BackWPup-UI and allowed to send some data from the failure (Option: BackWPup analytics).

I can't configure my hoster to use more than 192M php_memory_limit (256M for administration).
It should be possible to reproduce the error with this data.

../wp-admin/site-health.php tells me: database-size > 200 MB. Is this the Problem?

[saranshj4]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply and for the additional details.

I also tried reaching out via the support ticket you opened, but it seems the email replies are currently not being delivered. That’s why I followed up here as well.

Just to clarify, I’m not asking you to share any credentials on GitHub. The access would only be shared through the private support ticket, which is not public.

I completely understand your concern about sharing access. The reason we requested it is that although a few users are experiencing this memory issue, it appears to happen only in rare and specific server environments, and so far we have not been able to reproduce it on our test setups. To properly investigate and fix it, our developers usually need access to a site where the issue actually occurs.

I hope this explains the request.

Would it be possible for you to reach out again via the support form using another email address (in case the current one has delivery issues)? Once the ticket is active and replies are working, you could then send temporary WordPress admin and FTP access privately there, and we can have our developers take a closer look.

Thank you again for your cooperation and for helping us investigate this further.

[wwwFrank]

Hallo Saransh,
call me paranoid but I would never give full administrative access to people, groups, companies, communities ... whatever which I don't know face to face.

Before I retired I developed some FOSS-Software for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - FOSSGIS.
We used 2- or 3-Layer environment: 1. Development > 2. Testing > 3. Production.
Debugging has to be done in the dev-level.
My website-projekt only has the produktion-level, so I have to take care of it.
I have a "cost-effective entry level" by a web-hoster that allows no full server-administration by the customer. I only can use some UI-predefined settings, for example only 2 levels of php-logging. I don't know, if the devs are lucky with this.

But - good news - this action solved the problem for me:
My wp-database was greater then 200 MB. I worked about 4 years with WP without using a "DB Cleaner".
Today I installed a DB-Cleaner and removed older revisions of sites.
The cleaner said: 5821 Entries with 110 MB (?).
The new database-size is now 150 MB (200 - 110 = 150 ??).

BackWPup calculates only 28.80 MB, maybe compressed size (*.tar.gz)?
Log: [12-März-2026 17:44:15] Datenbank-Backup „**.sql“ mit 28,80 MB zur Backup-Datei-Liste hinzugefügt

Now the Backup with BackWPup 5.6.6, including a DB-dump, works without crashing the memory_limit.

The problem seems to be related to the size of the database.

[saranshj4]

Hi Frank,

Thank you for the detailed explanation, and I completely understand and respect your decision regarding access. That is absolutely fair.

I also appreciate you taking the time to investigate the issue on your side and sharing the findings. The information about the database size and the cleanup you performed is very helpful.

I understand your point that the database was previously around 200 MB and backups used to work without issues in earlier versions. I will definitely share this internally with our developers so they can review whether anything in the recent versions could affect memory usage when processing larger databases.

In the meantime, I’m glad to hear that cleaning up the old revisions reduced the database size and that the backup with BackWPup 5.6.6 is now running successfully again.

Thank you again for sharing the details and the solution you found. It will certainly help us better understand similar cases.

Best regards,