If you are getting network errors (messages like “server not available”) when you are saving changes or executing bulk edits, it means your server is overloaded.
Possible solutions:
1- You need to increase the PHP memory
Sometimes, your server has very limited memory (less than 256 MB).
So when you try to load hundreds of rows or save a lot of changes at once, the memory can be exhausted and you will get errors.
The solution is simple. Increase the PHP memory by editing the wp-config.php of your website. You can follow this tutorial.
We recommend 256mb or higher. If you have a big website with a lot of rows, you can set 1026mb. Any number works.
2- You need to save fewer posts per batch and increase the time between batches.
The spreadsheet saves the posts in batches, for example, 4 posts every 8 seconds. But if you are using a cheap server, this can overload the server.
So you can reduce the number to 2 posts every 10 seconds. You need to adjust the number of posts per batch and the time until it works.
Go to the spreadsheet > settings > advanced settings. And reduce the number in the option “Save changes faster”.
3- Maybe your login session expired
Maybe you were saving and logged out and logged in again in another tab. This would invalidate the security tokens, and you won’t be able to continue saving. This rarely happens, though.
In that case. The solution is to open the spreadsheet in another tab and copy paste the changes between the old sheet and the new sheet, and save in the new sheet where you have the new login session. You can copy paste a lot of cells at once.
4- Try to save smaller batches manually
For example, edit 5 posts and save, then edit other posts and save. Don’t wait until you make too many changes to save because it will take longer.
5- Disable the post actions while saving
WP triggers the save_post hook every time a post is updated in any context. Sometimes, other plugins make mistakes and execute their code everywhere the save_post hook is triggered.
Their mistake may break our saving because they think we are in the normal editor, and we don’t pass their security checks as we’re not in the normal editor.
You can go to the spreadsheet > settings > advanced settings > solution to weird error > activate the option “disable post actions while saving”.
6- WordPress has a heartbeat API, which pings the server every few seconds to check log in status. This overloads the server.
For example, you open the spreadsheet editor and use it for one hour, heartbeat has made about 100 requests to the server in that hour so when you start saving the server is already busy.
You can disable the heartbeat in our advanced settings (in the spreadsheet page > settings (top toolbar) > advanced settings > advanced).
Note. This might cause issues because WP will not notify you when your login session expires. So use this option only under extreme cases when you have a cheap server and you think this might help.