HTTP error code 403 (Forbidden)

The error message

Attention: Unfortunately, an error occurred. There was a problem with the server, HTTP response code 403 (Forbidden).

indicates a server configuration problem, likely related to your server’s security or firewall software.

Often, these are configured very strictly, so that they run into “false positive” errors when checking the data that is sent from your browser to the server. This could be the structure, the size, or even the content of the data in your table. This then probably triggers a security rule, because that software falsely thinks that an attack is happening. The software then blocks the request to save your table with that “HTTP 403 Forbidden” server error.

To fix this error, you will need to get in touch with the server admin or the webhost’s support team. They should be able to find the exact cause, and the security rule that triggered this, in the server error log files. Then, they will need to adjust and relax the configuration so that the false positive is no longer triggered.

HTTP error code 500 (Internal Server Error)

The error message

Attention: Unfortunately, an error occurred. There was a problem with the server, HTTP response code 500 ().

indicates a generic “Internal Server Error”, which usually means that there is a problem with the server configuration.

One common cause is that the so-called PHP Memory Limit was reached, e.g. when trying to save a large table. A good first step to solve such a problem is to increase this limit, which is often possible by increasing the value of the WordPress configuration constant WP_MEMORY_LIMIT in the site’s wp-config.php configuration file on the server. For some background on this, please see the WordPress documentation.

Editing the wp-config.php file is a slightly advanced task, but it’s not complicated. First, find a way to edit the PHP files on your server, e.g. by logging into your site or server via an FTP program or a SSH terminal. Your hosting company might also be providing a file management tool in your hosting account’s configuration panel. After opening the file for editing, check or search if there already is a line similar to

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '1024M' );Code language: PHP (php)

If there is such a line, change the value in function’s second parameter to e.g. 1024M or 2048M, but make sure to not accidentally remove any of the single quotes ' around the value.

If there is no such line, simply add it — but make sure to add it before the line

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

After this, you can check if the new value for the PHP Memory Limit is being by checking the “Debug and Version Information” section on the “About” screen of TablePress.

Alternatively to editing the wp-config.php file, you could try editing the PHP.ini configuration file in your hosting account, if available. In that PHP.ini file, find the line similar to

memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

and also try configuring higher values like 1024M or 2048M.

If you don’t have access to PHP.ini file, you can try adding this to an .htaccess file on the server:

php_value memory_limit 1024MCode language: plaintext (plaintext)

If the issue persists, it might be worth checking if the reached PHP Memory Limit actually is the cause of the problem. For this, you can check the server’s PHP error log file. If you don’t have access to that yourself, usually also via FTP or in your hosting account’s configuration panel, you can ask your hosting company’s support team for this.