Ghost Import fail: Import failed Request is larger than the maximum file size the server allows

[cameronembodied]

My site is https://cameronincarnate.com
Ghost v 3.5.0
One-click install DigitalOcean hosting on Ubuntu 18.04
Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome

Import failed
Request is larger than the maximum file size the server allows

Trying to import Wordpress export file using WordPress to Ghost official plugin (filesize is 101.8 MB)

[Torqu3Wr3nch]

What a fortuitous event. I just responded to someone with the same problem today:

@Torqu3Wr3nch

Geez. I don’t remember the exact structure of the import- is it just a .json and you’re saying you have a 3.3 GB JSON file?

Are you using NGINX for your web server?

If so, with an import that large, I suspect NGINX is just rejecting it. Go to the NGINX config for your site (/etc/nginx/sites-enabled) and look for a line in the server block that says something like: “client_max_body_size 5M;”

Change it (and if it’s not there, add):

client_max_body_size 5G;

Then restart NGINX with sudo systemctl restart nginx .

-TorqueWrench

From: Import failed - I cannot import a migration archive, it fails!

For you though, I’d probably do something more reasonable, like 500M

[cameronembodied]

Thanks a lot!

[Torqu3Wr3nch]

No problem. Let me know how it works out for you.

[EBA]

I seem to be facing something similar.
I’ve updated client_max to 5G and it still won’t start the import process.

Any ideas on what else could be throwing it off?

[EBA]

Update:

both nginx and Ghost tail give no errors.
The rejection happens instantly when clicking the import button. I’m clueless at this point

[abdilra7eem]

First I thought of timeout, but since it rejects it instantly, it must be something else.
Did you restart nginx after changing the settings? Is there something in the logs?

[EBA]

The rejection ended up being from Cloudflare.
It turns out their free CDN has a limit of 100M upload. I hope this saves someone down the road the trouble I ended up going through with this!

@vikaspotluri123 continues to save the day with my Ghost journey!

[akarve]

I’m seeing the same issue on an AWS CloudFormation deploy, though my configuration is different and there’s nothing at /etc/nginx/sites-enabled. I’ve apache2 running but am unclear as to what I should mod in /opt//bitnami/apache2/conf/*.conf to bump this limit.

[andrii]

@Torqu3Wr3nch

Go to the NGINX config for your site (/etc/nginx/sites-enabled) and look for a line in the server block that says something like: “client_max_body_size 5M;”

how to get here?

[Kenji_Bailly]

Thank you, not gonna look further. Could’ve ended up trying to fix this for hours.
Thanks!!! :)

[Johny_K]

So for CloudFlare 3 steps are needed:

1. Update nginx configuration file - client_max_body_size 5G;
2. restart nginx - sudo nginx -s reload
3. Change DNS connection - Not Proxied.