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Publish / Update button not working

Last Update: March 4, 2024

Issue

The Publish / Update button is disabled or not working.

Possible causes & solutions

This issue occurs when the server encounters an unexpected condition that prevents it from fulfilling the request. 

There can be many reasons for this and the server logs can point to the exact reason. 

Ask your hosting company to send you the PHP error logs of your server.

Following are some of the causes and their solutions.

Erroneous sections

Erase some sections in the page that you are trying to save and see if it enables you to perform the action. You can retrieve them by using the revision history of Elementor

Memory limit reached

  • Increase the WP memory limit to match Elementor’s system requirements. Activate the debug mode of WordPress to check how many MB you need exactly. Contact your hosting provider for further assistance. For details, refer Debugging in WordPress.
  • Decrease or clear the number of post revisions that are stored in the database. When there are many revisions stored, the hosting memory may exhaust and canlead the error. You can use the available plugins to resolve this issue. For example, WP Sweep. To use this plugin, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4U4e8NSIQ
  • If the issue still occurs after increasing the memory, divide your work into a few templates and paste them into another page. 

Dynamic timeout

Saving issues can occur due to the admin-ajax.php script timeout. You can know this by checking the error messages appearing in your browser console. The error message, in this case, is Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 413. When you experience this problem, add the following lines to your .htaccess file to increase the dynamic timeout:  

<IfModule mod_dtimeout.c> <Files ~ ".php"> SetEnvIf Request_URI "admin-ajax.php" DynamicTimeout=150 </Files> </IfModule>

Server parameter issues

This can also be due to parameters set on your server. For instance, HTTP/HTTPS conflicts. 

Adding an SSL certification to your site can solve the issue. Then you will have to change the URL of the site from your WP Dashboard in Elementor > Tools > Replace URL.

Publish Update button not working

Security plugins

If you get 403 error when attempting to update a page it can be due to a security plugin such as WordFence and others. To resolve this, activate the learning mode of the security plugin in use or contact their support. 

Server firewall

This issue can also be due to the firewall of your server. Check with your hosting company.

Have more questions? We’re more than happy to assist.

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