This article has had a run of hits late in 2021. Note that it is an old article, and I no longer use Flash movies on the site. I think the information is still valid, though. Also note that 1&1 is now known as IONOS.
I’ve recently been having a bit of trouble with one of the plugins I use on this site. It started when WordPress was updated. And note that this applies to a shared server with 1&1, though it may be relevant to others with different hosts.
The plugin in question displays videos (Flash movies, to be precise), and it isn’t the first time it has gone titsup. The only reason I was using it in the first place was that the uploader built into WordPress is restricted to the size limit for PHP file transfers set by your hosting company. When I first came up against this several years ago my main concern was to get videos working and I didn’t really think about how I could change the basic settings. Since there is no upload size restriction using FTP I just used that.
Using the WordPress’ native uploader would be by far the preferred option, though, because using FTP means you have to install a plugin to display the video (well, you did when I first came up against the problem), then upload the video manually using your FTP client. A simple short code pasted into the article will display the video. Until the plugin stops working, that is.
I’d had enough of the 8MB upload limit on my server, so set out to do something about it. For anyone else who has run into the same problem – particularly if they’re using 1&1 as their host – here’s how to increase the maximum upload file size limit. Type the following code into a text editor (NOT a word processor – I use Notepad++):
Save it with the filename “php.ini”. Upload the file to the wp-admin folder of your WordPress site. And that’s it. The values here increase the limit to 32MB.
It’s the php.ini file that you will need to target whoever your host is. Some may not let you change it, but others might. The advice above is specifically for 1&1 customers.