How to fix error 508 "Resource Limit Is Reached"

Error 508 means your hosting account reached its resource limit, usually because too many requests ran at once. It clears when usage drops, and caching helps prevent it.

Visitors usually see this page instead of your website: 508 Resource Limit Is Reached, with the text "The website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded resource limit. Please try again later."

What error 508 means

2MHost uses CloudLinux LVE (Lightweight Virtual Environment) on its shared servers. LVE gives each hosting account its own fixed share of CPU, memory and processes, so one busy website cannot slow down the other websites on the same server.

The size of that share depends on your hosting package. When your website needs more than its share for long enough, the server stops accepting extra requests for your account and shows error 508 until usage drops again.

Error 508 is not a server outage. The server works normally; only your website is held back for a short time.

Which resource limits apply to your hosting account

CloudLinux LVE limits several resources at once. This table shows each limit, what it measures and what happens when your account reaches it.

The values of these limits vary per hosting package.

Why not every fault causes error 508

A fault is one moment when your account reached a limit. The Resource Usage page in cPanel and the summary in the 2MHost client area both count faults.

A few faults during a busy minute are normal. CloudLinux LVE slows the account down for a moment or lets a request wait, and visitors usually notice nothing more than a slower page.

Error 508 appears only when faults pile up. This happens when requests keep arriving faster than your website can finish them, so they fill all the entry process slots and the server refuses the rest.

So when you see faults in your resource usage, check how many there are and when they happened. A steady rise or many faults in a short time is what leads to error 508.

Check resource usage in the 2MHost client area

The 2MHost client area shows a summary of the last 4 hours of resource usage and faults for each hosting account. Use it for a quick check without opening cPanel.

1. Log in to the client area at https://www.2mhost.com/login.
2. Click Hosting accounts.
3. Open the hosting account you want to check.
4. Look at the resource usage summary. It shows how much of each resource the account used in the last 4 hours and how many faults it had.

The summary looks like the screenshot below.

If the summary shows many faults, open cPanel to see which resource caused them and when.

Check resource usage in cPanel

cPanel shows detailed resource usage for your hosting account under Metrics › Resource Usage, with history and the limit of each resource.

1. Log in to the 2MHost client area, click Hosting accounts and click the cPanel button of the hosting account. cPanel opens already signed in. See What is cPanel and how do I log in? for more.
2. In the Metrics section, click Resource Usage.
3. Read the message at the top of the page. It says whether your account reached its limits in the last 24 hours.
4. Click the Current Usage tab to see a chart for each resource. The line for the limit shows how close your usage came to it.
5. Change the time period to see older days and compare them.
6. Click the Snapshot tab and pick a time when faults happened. It lists the processes and database queries that were running at that moment, which often shows the script or plugin behind the load.

The Statistics panel on the cPanel home page also shows the current usage of CPU, entry processes and physical memory next to their limits.

Find what causes the high usage

Error 508 almost always has one of these causes. Compare the times of the faults in cPanel Metrics › Resource Usage with what happened on your website at that time.

• A traffic spike: a campaign, a newsletter or a social media post sends many visitors at once.
• Bots and crawlers: SEO tools and badly behaved bots request hundreds of pages in a short time.
• Brute-force attacks: bots repeatedly try passwords on wp-login.php or send requests to xmlrpc.php.
• No page caching: every visit runs PHP and database queries again instead of serving a saved copy of the page.
• Heavy plugins or themes: one slow plugin can keep each request running for seconds.
• WP-Cron: WordPress runs scheduled tasks on page visits, which adds load on busy sites.
• Scheduled jobs: backup plugins, imports or cron jobs that run at the same time every day.
• An old PHP version: older PHP versions run the same code slower.

For a broader checklist, see How to reduce CPU and memory usage of your website.

Fix and prevent error 508

When error 508 appears, wait a few minutes first. The error clears by itself once the running requests finish. Then fix the cause so it does not come back, starting with the steps below.

Turn on caching

Page caching serves a saved copy of each page, so most visits do not run PHP at all. This is the most effective way to prevent error 508 on WordPress.

• On LiteSpeed hosting, turn on LSCache. See How to enable LSCache on my website?
• For WordPress sites with many database queries, add object caching. See What is Redis Object Caching and How to use it for WordPress?

Block bad bots and aggressive crawlers

You can block crawlers that you do not need with a rule in the .htaccess file in your website folder, usually public_html. See How to edit .htaccess using cPanel File Manager.

1. In cPanel, open Files › File Manager and go to public_html.
2. Download a copy of .htaccess as a backup.
3. Edit .htaccess and add these lines at the top of the file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (AhrefsBot|SemrushBot|MJ12bot|DotBot|PetalBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

Replace the bot names with the ones you see most often in cPanel Metrics › Raw Access or Metrics › Awstats. Remove a name if you use that SEO tool for your own website, because the rule blocks it too.

To slow down crawlers that respect it, add a crawl delay in the robots.txt file in public_html:

User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 10

Note: Googlebot ignores Crawl-delay. Do not block Googlebot or Bingbot, or your website disappears from their search results.

Protect wp-login.php and xmlrpc.php

Imunify360, built into 2MHost cPanel, blocks many brute-force attacks automatically. For extra protection inside WordPress, see Imunify360 Security Plugin for WordPress (Free).

If you do not use xmlrpc.php, block it by adding these lines to the .htaccess file in public_html:

<Files xmlrpc.php>
Require all denied
</Files>

Warning: Jetpack, the WordPress mobile app and some remote publishing tools need xmlrpc.php. If you use any of them, skip this rule, or they stop connecting to your website.

Replace WP-Cron with a real cron job

WP-Cron runs WordPress scheduled tasks during page visits. On busy sites, replace it with a cron job that runs on a fixed schedule.

1. In cPanel, open File Manager and edit wp-config.php in your WordPress folder.
2. Add this line above the line /* That's all, stop editing! */:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

1. In cPanel, open Advanced › Cron Jobs.
2. Add a cron job that runs every 15 minutes with this command:

wget -q -O - https://example.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1

Replace example.com with your domain. For the full steps, see How to Disable WP-Cron (wp-cron.php) to boost performance?

Find slow plugins with PHP X-Ray

PHP X-Ray in 2MHost cPanel records which plugins, themes and functions take the most time on each request. Deactivate or replace the slowest ones. See How to find slow WordPress plugins with PHP X-Ray in cPanel.

Use a supported PHP version

Newer PHP versions run the same code faster and with less memory. In cPanel, select a recent PHP version that your website supports. See How to change the PHP version in cPanel.

Upgrade the hosting plan

If your website is optimized and still reaches its limits because of real visitors, it needs more resources than its package gives. Upgrade to a larger plan or to Performance Hosting on LiteSpeed.

Troubleshooting

Error 508 comes back at the same time every day

A scheduled task, such as a backup plugin, an import or a cron job, most likely runs at that time. In cPanel, open Advanced › Cron Jobs and check your plugin schedules, then move heavy tasks to a quiet hour or run them less often.

Error 508 appears only in wp-admin

The WordPress dashboard is not cached, and the Heartbeat API sends requests to admin-ajax.php every few seconds from each open tab. Close extra wp-admin tabs and reduce the Heartbeat frequency, for example in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin under Toolbox › Heartbeat.

Resource Usage shows faults, but visitors see no error

This is normal. A few faults mean your account reached a limit briefly and CloudLinux LVE slowed it down for a moment; error 508 appears only when faults pile up.

Error 508 appears even with very few visitors

Bots, a brute-force attack or one very slow script probably cause the load. In cPanel, check Metrics › Resource Usage and the Snapshot tab for the time of the faults, and run PHP X-Ray to find the slow code. If you cannot find the cause, open a help ticket at https://www.2mhost.com/tickets/create.

Frequently asked questions

How long does error 508 last?

Usually a few minutes. The error clears once the running requests finish; if it keeps coming back, the cause is still active.

Does error 508 mean my website is hacked?

Usually not. Most 508 errors come from traffic, bots or slow plugins, but malware can also create load, so run an Imunify360 scan in cPanel if the usage has no clear reason.

Does error 508 affect other websites on my hosting account?

Yes. The limits apply to the whole hosting account, so all websites and add-on domains in it share the same resources and can show error 508 together.

Will error 508 hurt my Google ranking?

Not if it is brief. Search engines retry pages that fail for a short time, but frequent errors can reduce how often they crawl your website.

Related articles

• How to reduce CPU and memory usage of your website
• How to enable LSCache on my website?
• How to find slow WordPress plugins with PHP X-Ray in cPanel
• How to Disable WP-Cron (wp-cron.php) to boost performance?