Search Results for 'max_input_vars'

I have migrated the domain name, server, and database to the production server and everything works (gallery field, text field, everything) fine except for the Repeater Field. Every time I add a row and write something in it or update an existing tab, it deletes everything in the Repeater Field. After some debugging of act_update_value function in ACF, I found out that the $value field is sent as string(0) "" I don’t know what can be the issue. I updated the PHP configuration just in case to:

php_value max_input_vars 3000
php_value max_input_time 120
php_value max_execution_time 60

But that didn’t solve the problem either. In the development server the PHP parameters are half the numbers above and the repeaters work.

What can cause this issue? Why is the $value attribute is empty?

Hi all,

I’ve been using the ACF plugin for years now and it’s saved me hundreds of hours in development building complex websites. I never ran into any problems and am quite confident I will not do so in the nearby future.

I am currently working on a large client website that requires the use of the Flexible Content Field with a lot more layouts and fields than I’m used to integrate which is usually around 6 layouts with roughly 40-50 fields in total.

Right now I have successfully integrated 12 different layouts containing 129 fields in total. The fields are all of the “simple” type like text, color picker, textarea and WYSIWYG. I have not used any nested repeaters or nested Flexible Fields. Everything is working as expected both in front- and backend.

In the end I will most likely have a total of 16 different layouts that contain about 160 fields. I was wondering if anybody else has ever used this amount or more layouts & fields without any problems in saving/ updating/ retrieving data or having to make adjustments to the hosting environment.

I’m using ACF PRO 5.2.2 in WordPress 4.1.1 and have my max_input_vars set to 4000 and the post_max_size to 8M.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience with this kind of large Flexible Content Field setup.

Best regards,
Ernst

Hi,

Wordpress 4.1.1 and ACF v4.4.1 here running on standard WAMP stack.

I use ACF for a very large and complex multi-lingual resource centre which organises documents and images by product codes. I use taxonomies for product codes of which there are around 7000!

I have an issue with ACF where it stops displaying fields in the backend after 3 have been defined, basically it just stops rendering completely without giving any PHP errors or warnings. It basically stops rendering on the ‘Filter from taxonomy’ text field on the third field. The fields I am defining are relationship fields on a certain post_type and filtered to an individual taxonomy value. The ‘Filter from taxonomy’ list is extremely large – many thousands of individual rows because of the number of different taxonomy values present.

It seems clear that I’m hitting some kind of resource limit but I have tinkered with my PHP.ini file, increasing the memory allocation to 6GB and adding:

max_input_vars = 50000
suhosin.get.max_vars = 50000
suhosin.post.max_vars = 50000
suhosin.request.max_vars = 50000

But nothing works! Clearly it’s making it rather difficult to manage my custom fields when the backend won’t render the interface.

Any help gratefully received!

Kevin

Hi,

I created the fieldgroup “Rahmenbedingungen” including five costum fields. All the same type etc.

But the 5th field “hallengroesse” is not shown in the frontend. For example:

http://handball-pro.de/passkontinuum-stossen/

I already added the code the .htaccess and created a php.ini:

php_value max_input_vars 3000
php_value suhosin.get.max_vars 3000
php_value suhosin.post.max_vars 3000
php_value suhosin.request.max_vars 3000

Thanks for your help.

Hey Guys,

I am having the same problem that a few people discussed about in the forum however we couldn’t find a solution.

We got to a point that the fields doesn’t save anymore.

We have a couple of Repeaters and Flexible Content all together in one of our Custom Post Types.

max_input_vars is on 500000 (Very large number) but still not working.

If i move the field up and down it gets saved however the last one it wont get saved at all and we need to include a couple of new ones.

Do we have any limits for repeater or flexible content being saved?

Anything else to make it work? Any magic? Please HELP!!!!!!

Details.
– WordPress – Version 3.8.4
– Advanced Custom Fields: Repeater Field – Version 1.1.1
– Advanced Custom Fields: Flexible Content Field – Version 1.1.1 |

Kind Regards,
Andre.

I am using flexible content type with repeaters nested within it.

I have a live site and a dev site. Dev is local and live is at HostGator. Both were working earlier and the client notified me that some items of content fell off on the live site. When I went in to troubleshoot I realized that the custom fields for the 9th item within the repeater is missing on the live site.

So I tried to add it back in and it saves but the new custom field won’t show. I feel like everything after 8 items is just falling off. The reason for that is I can edit something in the first item but anything below the 8th won’t stick.

I feel like the issue is something to do with config settings on live (although everything was working ok on the same servers) Here is what I have done to troubleshoot so far…I have access to the php.ini file and am verifying that my config changes are sticking by checking a phpinfo() file. I have ramped up all these settings: max_input_vars, post_max_size, max_execution_time, max_input_time, max_input_nesting_level, memory_limit

Hi,

We have been following a workflow where we manually create fields inside field groups on local, staging and then finally production.

Now, the server where live site was hosted earlier had increased value of max_input_vars so I was able to manage a lot of fields but now we are residing on a new server where the max_input_vars was at its default value of 1000.

I didn’t realize that and I tried adding a new field inside the field group, which lead to loss of some of the old fields in the field group. Now, I am trying to bring them back.

Its exactly setup the way it needs to be on our staging site but since that was setup manually, it has different field keys than what it would have on the live site. My understanding is that ACF uses field keys internally and its ok if they change till they are unique overall (or just field group?). But I just saw that post meta of pages have field keys saved there.

Not really sure what’s going on.

We eventually would like to move to a setup where we commit the PHP export of the field group so understanding how we can move the existing fields without impacting any saved data is important.

Using ACF 4.3.8

Hey Elliot,
Not sure if this is really practical, but would it be possible to do a check that we’re not submitting an ACF Form that will exceed the max_input_vars, and if so throw a warning and stop the form from submitting?

It could be a simple count of the number of fields (bonus points if you could get other fields on the page as well outside of ACF) to see if we’d be hitting that limit. I know it might not be possible to get an exact count (I think cookies are counted in the total for example), but close would be nice.

I just hit the limit in the ACF Field editor, which caused me to lose the last field, which happened to be a repeater. It’s not the end of the world when you lose a normal field since get_field should still be able to retrieve the value, but I think with a Repeater it checks back to the original field, which was gone. Oddly enough once I finally managed to increase the limit and recreate the field, the content didn’t reappear on the front page. I had to go into the post and hit save for it to show up, even though when editing the post I could see the content.

I think the number of fields was 47 if that helps.

Cheers!
Phill

Hi @elliot,

Just encountered a bug when saving values within a 2x repeaters and flexible content field. It says it saves fine, and appears to have saved. But then I left the options page (after saving), and then re-entered, and it didn’t actually save it.

Using Options, Flexible Content and Repeater plugins. Have tried disabling other plugins, just having ACF by itself – but didn’t change anything.

I’ve also tried flushing out post revisions, still no luck.

I’ve tried changing the PHP settings, including all of the below:

max_input_vars = 3000;
max_input_nesting_level = 128;
max_input_time = 300;
max_execution_time = 300;
post_max_size = 32M;
memory_limit = 300M;

But didn’t fix it unfortunately.

I will attach a private login example, so you can check it out.

Does anybody know a fix for this?

Kind Regards,
Matt

I need to build out a list of states as individual field groups. Everything was going swimmingly until I hit 25 and updated. For some reason the last five entries were gone. I added three more and hit update… back to 20…

http://i.imgur.com/rL4l8WV.png

I’ve set my max_input_vars to 3000, though it didn’t fix the issue.

These happen to be repeater fields — could that be the issue?

Are field groups limited to 20 entries? If so, how do I bump that up… I need at least 50…

Any help is appreciated, thanks 🙂

I’ve been putting together a page that needs 23 row from what I have set up for the flexible content field, but I’m getting stuck at 20. Once I have added a 20th row I’m unable to add any more rows. I can click to add a new row, but nothing shows up. I’m not getting any PHP errors. Before I had run into the max_input_vars issue, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue here.

I have a repeater that contains 3 sub-fields that I created months ago. I would like to add 1 more sub-field to the list. When I add the sub-field to the repeater, it shows up fine on my page to add content to it, however when I click on “Update” to save the page, the content disappears from the newly created sub-field and I get no data in the PHP.

I've tried changing my max_input_vars to 3000 which is more than enough and I still get the same results.

I've experienced this in the past and had to completely remove the repeater field and recreate the whole thing with different names to get it working again, but in this case I'm using the repeater in many different places and would like NOT to have to re-create all repeater fields.

Any help or suggestions?

Hi,
for a client I have to fix a problem. At the moment he can’t save more than 66 fields in an ACF-Group. I was researching a bit and found out, that one possible problem could be, that the max_input_vars in the php.ini is too low, so PHP rejects the POST-Values after 1.000 fields. I was checking and indeed the Form was sending more than 1.000 fields.

I first tried the .htaccess-Solution as described e.g. here:
http://support.advancedcustomfields.com/forums/topic/repeater-field-values-disappearing/
and in this blog post:
http://bullmandesign.com/quick-tips/too-much-of-a-good-thing

But, this produced an Error 500 because the machine is (as I found out) running as FastCGI. For people with this problem, check the possibilty of the user.ini:
http://php.net/manual/de/configuration.file.per-user.php

So I translated the .htaccess to the .user.ini and uploaded this file.

max_input_vars = 5000
max_input_time = 300
max_input_nesting_level = 128
max_execution_time = 300
post_max_size = 32M

<?php phpinfo(); ?> displays set the new values are set as local values for PHP now.

But unfortunatly still, after uploading and everything, I am not able to save more than these 66 fields. Now, I have no further idea, what to do. Does anyone has an suggesstion?

Thanks a lot!

• In reply to ACF unable to perform validation due to an invalid security nonce?

• December 19, 2025 at 7:06 pm

It’s kind of frustrating that this is still open. I posed the cause and solution over a year ago and it was deleted.

I posted it here, and on the WordPress Plugin area, both removed.

It is fixed by adjusting the max_input_vars.

What I had originally suggested was moving the Nonce to the beginning of the JSON payload and then to throw an invalid JSON error which is probably a more useful and accurate error that an invalid nonce.

Because the payload is too large the nonce isn’t captured by the server.

• In reply to ACF unable to perform validation due to an invalid security nonce?

• December 10, 2024 at 2:39 pm

Was your menu like really long? We found and used the same solution. By increasing the max_input_vars we were able to save our larger than life menu.

• In reply to ACF unable to perform validation due to an invalid security nonce?

• December 9, 2024 at 6:36 pm

The likely underlying cause is that the nonce is getting truncated when the number of fields or parameters exceeds PHP’s max_input_vars setting.

My guess is that @clicknathan’s fix works for those close to exceeding the limit, as disabling the metabox provides some needed leeway in the total number of input variables.

For us, the fix seems to be increasing the site’s or server’s max_input_vars setting to 10,000, depending on the environment.

• In reply to Loss of Repeater Field Data when Rearranging Layouts in Flexible Content

• November 22, 2023 at 4:49 am

I confirm – it is still a thing.

It happens for different field setups – I’m still doing a more through investigation of the issue.

The problem that was reported to me recently was an editor using a simple flexible section (text field, textarea, button + repeater containing only one select input per row) – one day the data is there and the next day the whole section has a structure (so I see lets say 6 repeater rows) but all is empty, even fields marked as required.

Using a DB backup I noticed that the sections order was changed between the days – so it could support this idea suggested initially by wplus.

And no John Huebner – there is no conditional logic for this section.

So far (in my investigation) I can see that the data for this section seems to be still in the DB but ACF does not see it to fill the forms with the values.

I have:
ACF Pro Version 6.2.3
WordPress 6.4.1
PHP Version 8.1.23
max_input_vars 10000 (which is not exceeded by the edited page)
+ reasonable log max_execution_time & max_input_time

• In reply to Saving a post causes few sub-rows form the end under repeater field to be delete

• August 15, 2023 at 10:09 am

After I posted this, I figured it out it’s related to the max_input_vars.
Thank you!

This specific back-end post saving, included lots of lots of vars… (fields inside groups inside repeater inside repeater). Any best practice for this?
Any way to optimize this max_input_vars? maybe I can make ACF splitting those post requests into several requests?

Thanks!

• In reply to Saving a post causes few sub-rows form the end under repeater field to be delete

• August 15, 2023 at 9:50 am

When fields disappear at the end of a repeater this is usually do to the PHP setting max_input_vars. This setting needs to be edited on your server/host. The default is 1000.
[Search Results]

• In reply to ACF Repeater Data Loss While Saving Changes

• July 21, 2023 at 12:46 pm

This is a user forum and ACF developers do not answer questions here.

Someone can try to help you but you’ll need to provide more information. With the information you’ve provided I can give you some general reasons that this happens.

If the page you are editing has many fields it could be an issue with the php setting “max_input_vars”

Another possible issue is that another field with the same name is interfering with saving the value.

If you want to contact the developers directly you need use the contact form or submit a ticket through your account.

You’re video does not really help me. How many fields are you dealing with? How many rows have you added to repeaters and flexible content fields? How many other fields are on the page?

• In reply to Issue with ACF Free version

• April 12, 2023 at 3:50 pm

There’s no limitation coming from ACF but you could hit up against a max setting for PHP max_input_vars on your server or similar that could interfere.

• In reply to Text fields not saving changes

• February 17, 2023 at 7:46 pm

How many fields are in your field group? Is it a large number? If this is the case you might be having an issue with php max_input_vars

If that is not it then your field name may be conflicting with some other field in WP.

• In reply to max_input_vars and fields not saving

• October 27, 2022 at 11:32 am

Well, I just did some reading about max_input_vars and DDOS, it was enlightening. Now I understand the emails I get from WordFence about increased attack rates with increasing numbers of $_POST values. Quite honestly, I was not aware of the reason for PHP to limit this, but now I know something new I did not know yesterday.

At any rate, a good security plugin, like WordFence does a decent job a blocking these types of attacks, and depending on what country they are coming from I simply block the IP address permanently.

• In reply to max_input_vars and fields not saving

• October 27, 2022 at 10:00 am

ACF works more simply than other “page builders”. ACF is not really a page builder. ACF works by sending all of the data in $_POST in a single request. Other systems use AJAX to update data as you work, ACF does not. ACF is built on the idea of using only what core WP offers for managing custom fields. It does not do anything that you could not do by creating and managing your own custom fields with your own processing using WP add_meta_box().

I routinely set max_input_vars to 10,000 or even higher on ACF heavy sites. But 10,000 is my general starting point when I’m building a custom site using ACF.

This plugin has not been updated in a long time, but it still work, and give a warning when the inputs on a page exceed max_input_vars https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-max-submit-protect/

• In reply to Site Options not re-saving image file

• September 25, 2022 at 11:09 am

There are too many possibilities.

The most likely reasons for a field not saving are

– There is another field with the same name
– the php setting max_input_vars is preventing the submission of the field.