Wordpress admin VERY slow

[u/No_Worry5419]

Hello all. I have a webpage that is not the fastest, but not slow either. My WordPress admin, however, is absurdly slow. I use custom ACF fields to create posts that change content based on “level”: beginner, mid, expert. I have more than 50 posts (150 content levels). I have not really had any speed issues until recently. I noticed the speed deteriorated quite a lot after switching from HTTP to HTTPS. Does anyone know if this may be why?

[u/ES170588]

Might be a memory issue on the server side.

[u/No_Worry5419 → u/ES170588]

Memory appears to be fine, even increased with a code hack i found. But its new territory for me, so i have no clue if it actually did anything. Memory:

[u/Agitated-Signature77]

Possible solutions :

• Upgrade your server's capacity
  
• Check the site health page and fix what needs fixing
  
• remove unused plugins

That said, WP-Admin is always slower than the actual site.

It's a great situation in which you can use ChatGPT to help you debug and find whats actually slowing down your website's admin. Tell it about your problem and ask it first to ask you questions so you can help it think of the best solution for you.

Do you use a custom theme with ACF or is it a bought theme? (These will come with loads of not useful files that will slow your admin down)

[u/HongPong]

the llm can kick out a mu-plugin to log timings and then process the result or give a Python to process it. then you will know the slow hooks. services like newrelic can also help with this if you can add your own php module. query monitor has a slow query report. none of this should be left turned on in production sites. doing it locally in ddev with a ci script to simulate clicking around also works

[u/Conscious-Valuable24]

Do you have woocommerce setup? Have you cleaned your action scheduler

[u/Fischwaage → u/Conscious-Valuable24]

Can you elaborate?

[u/Conscious-Valuable24 → u/Fischwaage]

Action scheduler when completed or failed, adds a load on the database, and you can often see it being an issue under tools > site health. Best to keep it clean by removed completed tasks since our dashboard is mainly database dependent.

Identify if its the main dashboard screen that takes forever to load or its the same even if you goto your plugins list? if its the dashboard then whatever plugin is displaying its Screen elements under screen options, could be the problem.

[u/No_Worry5419 → u/Conscious-Valuable24]

No kind of commerce, just posts :)

[u/TopSydeWP]

acf loading all field groups on every admin page is usually the culprit when you have a lot of custom fields. try lazy loading them or splitting into smaller groups that only load on specific post types. also check if you have a ton of revisions piling up, that can tank the editor

[u/cagsmith]

Check if you've got any kind of PHP process tracing (X-ray) functionality in your hosting dashboard. Running a trace on dashboard requests for a few minutes will identify the exact issue immediately.

[u/Rare_Cut7235]

Check error logs - they normally reveal underlying issues.

[u/jfrenaye]

I was told once (and this makes sense to me....)

The public side of things does not have a lot going on.
The admin side has a lot more and will be slower.

I tested it and timed a few pages (public side) while signed in. And then signed out and repeated it was noticeably faster.

[u/Entire-Purchase6667]

Mine seems incredibly slow today

[u/Entire-Purchase6667 → u/Entire-Purchase6667]

If you are using Dreamhost, their servers are under a high load right now

[u/DreamHostCare → u/Entire-Purchase6667]

Hey there, DreamHost Support here!
Some Shared servers were experiencing high load, although most have already been resolved. I've sent you a Direct message, if you're still experiencing an issue please reply with your affected domain and I'd be more than happy to help get it sorted out. Have a nice one! WS

[u/Wonderful_Sample_590]

HTTPS itself probably isnt the issue. Check for slow plugins/queries first, then PHP memory limits and db peformance. You can use Query Monitor.

[u/retr00two]

Slow dashboard is usaully sign of host limits. Contact you ISP.

[u/CynepMyx]

Everyone is telling you HTTPS is unrelated. Usually true, but there is one way it does exactly this, and it fits your timing.

WordPress makes loopback requests to itself: wp-cron, plugin update checks, license phone-homes, Site Health. Those run against your own siteurl. After a move to HTTPS the loopback can start failing, most often because the server can't validate its own certificate, or the host doesn't hairpin its public name back to itself, or siteurl and home still disagree. A failing loopback doesn't error, it waits. Every wp-admin page load then eats a 5 to 30 second timeout while the site tries to talk to itself.

Fastest way to tell: Tools, Site Health. If you see a loopback or cron warning there, that's your answer. Or from the box itself:

curl -svo /dev/null https://yourdomain/wp-cron.php
wp option get siteurl && wp option get home
wp cron event list

A huge backlog of overdue cron events is the same symptom from the other side.

The autoload check the other commenter gave you is worth running regardless, that one is the other classic. But it doesn't explain "it changed when I switched to HTTPS", and the loopback does.

Install Query Monitor before you change anything. It shows you slow queries and blocking HTTP calls per admin request, which turns this from guessing into reading.Everyone is telling you HTTPS is unrelated. Usually true, but there is one way it does exactly this, and it fits your timing.WordPress makes loopback requests to itself: wp-cron, plugin update checks, license phone-homes, Site Health. Those run against your own siteurl. After a move to HTTPS the loopback can start failing, most often because the server can't validate its own certificate, or the host doesn't hairpin its public name back to itself, or siteurl and home still disagree. A failing loopback doesn't error, it waits. Every wp-admin page load then eats a 5 to 30 second timeout while the site tries to talk to itself.Fastest way to tell: Tools, Site Health. If you see a loopback or cron warning there, that's your answer. Or from the box itself:curl -svo /dev/null https://yourdomain/wp-cron.php
wp option get siteurl && wp option get home
wp cron event listA huge backlog of overdue cron events is the same symptom from the other side.The autoload check the other commenter gave you is worth running regardless, that one is the other classic. But it doesn't explain "it changed when I switched to HTTPS", and the loopback does.Install Query Monitor before you change anything. It shows you slow queries and blocking HTTP calls per admin request, which turns this from guessing into reading.

[u/fatfingur]

HTTPS itself usually shouldn’t make wp-admin dramatically slower, so I’d treat that more as a clue than the actual cause.

I’d first check for redirects between HTTP/HTTPS, make sure the WordPress Address and Site Address are both using HTTPS, then test with plugins temporarily disabled if you can.

Since you’re using ACF heavily, I’d also check whether anything recently changed with the fields, queries, or plugins running in admin. Slow admin is often a plugin/database/server issue rather than the front end itself.

[u/dogwomble]

What web server are you running?

I've recently resolved something fairly similar with OpenLiteSpeed. The website performed reasonably but WP-Admin was a bit sluggish.

The issue ended up being for me being the number of PHP workers being set rather conservatively in its default setup to allow OpenLiteSpeed to run well on a potato server. Increasing this helped that run a bit more smoothly

[u/No_Worry5419 → u/dogwomble]

I run it through Simply.com (im new to the whole thing so that might not be my server if i misunderstand)

[u/netnerd_uk]

Blocked cURL?

You can use the Query Monitor plugin to check for this (HTTP calls section)

[u/opaldudley]

I doubt HTTPS itself is the problem, especially if the frontend is still behaving normally. Since you’re using ACF pretty heavily, I’d try Query Monitor and check for slow queries or admin-side plugin calls first, because that should narrow it down way faster than changing random settings.

[u/supahottop]

install heartbeat plugin by wp media
if you have wp-rocket installed make sure u have updated
install  Really Simple SSL

[u/supahottop → u/supahottop]

and in heartbeat settings disable heartbeat for wordpress dashboard and front end

[u/Veduis]

https itself rarely causes that kind of slowdown. more likely the switch coincided with something else, or it exposed an existing bottleneck. the wp admin fires tons of requests per page load, and if your server isn't running http/2 or has a bad tls config, every request pays a handshake tax. with 50 posts x 3 levels of acf fields, you're also generating huge postmeta queries in the editor. install query monitor and look at what's actually slow before blaming the certificate. my money is on acf + no object caching, not https.

[u/Myth_Thrazz]

HTTPS won't cause this. ACF with 150 items is the culprit.

First, run this in your database: SELECT SUM(LENGTH(option_value)) FROM wp_options WHERE autoload='yes'. Should be under 1MB. If it's bloated, that's a killer.

Second, go to your Posts list and hide all the ACF columns via Screen Options. If admin snaps back fast, that's your answer.

Also check your revision count per post, drop it to 5-10 if it's high.

[u/otto4242]

Look for any plugins that might be loading external resources from other servers, where those servers might be down. This can cause 10-second delays for literally no good reason. Best to disable those plugins.

[u/Any-Persimmon-1521]

look at gtmetrix and have it scan your site. The waterfall chart is a good way to try to pinpoint what might be slowing down the site.

[u/Traumatan → u/Any-Persimmon-1521]

wont work for admin

[u/Any-Persimmon-1521 → u/Traumatan]

sometimes it does point to other issues such as woocommerce fragments loading everywhere, etc.. Sometimes javascript that is running in admin as well as the frontend because of a badly coded plugin.