Comments on: Huge Core Dump Files in WordPress Folders

By: Brian at SocialSEO.com

Brian at SocialSEO.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:37:20 +0000

Hi,
We were setting up a website on Hostgator and after two or three days I noticed that there were hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of these core.xxxx dump files within the root folder and /wp-admin/. In total it was like 20GB of space used b/c each one was around 50MB each. Crazy!

I got some help from Hostgator though (they’re amazing for cust. support) and it turns out that wp-cron.php was continuously looking for another file, the phpinfo.php file that is located within the root folder.

They added the file there but the weird thing is that it was never there to begin with. I’m not sure if this file is created on a new WordPress install, but this was with WP 2.8.4.

So, I’d recommend checking for this phpinfo.php file in the root folder.

Thanks and good luck!
Brian

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:38:45 +0000

I would be 99% sure these core dump files were created by PHP. What caused the crash is the WP cron file, wp-cron.php.

I am not sure exactly why wp-cron.php would cause the crash, but it may have something to do with pingbacks. A firewall on the server may be blocking them, causing a timeout (or perhaps in the absence of a timeout, the script runs infinitely until it crashes).

By: Pundit

Pundit — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:29:23 +0000

I believe that I have found the problem at least on my servers. It was PHP 5.2.10 there seems to be a bug in it that causes core dumps and other errors. I have recompiled to 5.2.9 and everything seems to be working just fine.

By: Cash Advance

Cash Advance — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:23:59 +0000

I have noticed that these files show up on sites I use the newer version of XML sitemap generator plugin.

Have not yet disabled the plugin for testing, but may soon.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:33:37 +0000

I’ve been getting masses of these ever since upgrading WP to the latest version. Could WP be to blame? My host is useless when enquiring, they write to bollock me for going over my disk quota and won’t offer any help or advice to resolve the issue. I’m going to start looking for a new host…

By: Twilight Fairy

Twilight Fairy — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:45:56 +0000

core dump files can be safely deleted, they are useful only if you want to debug what happened. Since WP is pretty much well tested before they release any version, it could be some plugin or some theme component causing the crash. you could send it to the WP guys anyway.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:36:26 +0000

You may want to try pulling some plugins down after deleting the core file. My guess is you have a poorly written plugin that’s so hosed it causes the core dump(s) … it’s unlikely that WP itself causes those to happen.

By: John Hoff - WpBlogHost

John Hoff - WpBlogHost — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:47:49 +0000

Hello, been reading in my reader for awhile but this is my first time commenting.

I think everyone pretty much has it down. It’s doubtful your host will be interested in these files, as well as you. Deleting them should be fine.

However, if you’re at all a bit nervous, I’d say back everything up first. Always good to do.

WordPress on it’s own shouldn’t be dumping a lot of files, I bet it’s a plugin like you suggest.

By: QuickOnlineTips

QuickOnlineTips — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:07:06 +0000

Thanks for all your useful feedback. It seems something is buggy on the wordpress install that is generating these core dumps.

Obviously no hosting engineer would be interested to look over the code in detail, unless necessary.

Maybe some plugin is acting funny. I will try to find the problem.

By: Core Dump Files in WordPress Folders « Feed It

Core Dump Files in WordPress Folders « Feed It — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:29:34 +0000