413 Request Entity Too Large: raise upload limits in nginx, PHP and more

413 Request Entity Too Large (now officially called Content Too Large) means the request body is bigger than the server agreed to accept. It nearly always shows up as a failed file upload. The fix is simple once you find which limit you hit, because a typical request passes through three or four of them.

Every layer has its own limit

The smallest limit in the chain wins. Raising PHP's limit to 100 MB does nothing while nginx in front of it still stops at 1 MB.

Find which layer said no

Look at the error page. nginx shows a bare 413 Request Entity Too Large nginx page; Cloudflare shows its own branded page; PHP often doesn't return 413 at all, it just hands your code an empty upload. Then fix from the outside in.

Raising the limits

nginx

server {
    client_max_body_size 50m;   # or inside a single location block
}

sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

PHP (including WordPress)

upload_max_filesize = 50M
post_max_size = 55M        ; slightly bigger: the form has other fields too
memory_limit = 256M

Restart PHP-FPM after the change, and check phpinfo() to confirm the values loaded from the file you edited.

Node.js

app.use(express.json({ limit: "5mb" }));

If you're a visitor

Compress the file, export the image at a lower resolution, or split the upload. There's nothing to change on your side; the limit is the site's setting.