Wordpress removes my menu items if above the Limit of 90 menu items -

Question

I want to add more item in my menu

I've a menu that contains at least 90 item in wordPress menus (administration), I want to add more and I found that others are removed automatically.

Any solution?

Answer 1

In most likelihood ( but not 100% ) , This is a PHP limit, not WP.

You can verify / configure it by looking at your php.ini.

Basically, the problem is max_input_vars variable in php.ini.

This variable was introduced in PHP version 5.3.9 and has the default value of 1000.

You should try to increase it to 1500 or even 2000.

Further explanation : ( For those who want to understand more )

As you can see in the above php doc link, This is basically a limit applied to $_GET, $_POST and $_COOKIE superglobal separately.

Every time you click the save menu button in wordPress, you basically sending a lot of POST variables estimated by this formula :

"Total POST variables" = 11 * "number of menu items" + 9

So you can easily understand that when you add 90 menu items you are actually sending

( 11*90 )  + 9 = 999

that is too close to your default limit of 1000 and any further POST item will tip the limit ..

Similarly , When you add it via POST Ajax ( add menu by drag and drop ) the formula is a bit different - but the concept is the same ..

"Total POST variables" = 10 * "number of menu items" + 3

So just calculate your limit - and increase accordingly ( with ratio and a bit of safety margin.. just putting 10,0000 might work but it is not very logic .. )

Some further tech detail can be found here or here

PS :

A bit of googling will also find a plugin to help you with a notification when you arrive to that limit.