Troubleshooting “An error occurred while processing your request” During Article Generation

Overview #

Occasionally, when generating articles (especially Longread articles), you may see a pop-up alert that says:

“An error occurred while processing your request.”

This error typically appears while the plugin is in the process of creating or optimizing content (for example, generating a featured image, adding SEO data, or creating additional images).

Below are some common causes and suggested solutions.

Potential Causes & How to Resolve #

1. SEO Plugin Inactive or Missing #

• Symptom: If your SEO plugin (e.g., Rank Math, Yoast, or another) is not active or installed, the AI Content Wizard plugin might fail at the SEO optimization step.
• Solution:
  1. Ensure your preferred SEO plugin is installed and active.
  2. Attempt to generate the article again.

2. Image Optimization Overload #

• Symptom: Some hosting environments cannot handle the simultaneous load of generating large images (especially in Longread mode) and then optimizing them with an image optimization plugin or built-in server compression.
• Solution:
  1. Disable image optimization in the plugin’s Global Image Settings.
     • Navigate to: Image Settings & AI Image Generation Options
     • Turn off or reduce any extra image optimization features.
  2. Retry generating the article.
  3. If the error persists, consider temporarily deactivating any third-party image optimization plugin to see if that resolves the issue.

3. PHP Configuration Limits #

• Symptom: The process might time out or exceed memory limits during generation, especially for large or complex articles (e.g., 40k+ characters).
• Solution:
  1. Check your server’s PHP configuration:
     • max_execution_time (try increasing it to 180 seconds or more).
     • memory_limit (consider 512M or higher if you generate very large articles).
     • upload_max_filesize and post_max_size if images are large.
  2. Adjust these values in your hosting control panel (cPanel, Plesk) or in your php.ini/.htaccess file.
  3. Contact your hosting provider if you are unsure how to increase these limits.

Additional Tips #

1. Check Server Logs:
   • Look at the PHP error logs or the hosting logs around the time of the error. Often, a specific error message (e.g., “Allowed memory size exhausted” or “Execution timed out”) helps pinpoint the root cause.
2. Retest With Minimal Setup:
   • Temporarily deactivate other plugins to see if a conflict is causing the error.
   • Switch to a default WordPress theme (like Twenty Twenty-Three) to ensure no theme conflicts.
3. Longread Mode Resource Usage:
   • Because Longread mode generates extensive text (20–100k characters) plus multiple images, it is more resource-intensive. Reducing the approximate text length or the number of internal images can lower the load on your server.
4. Contact Your Hosting Support:
   • If you continue to see “An error occurred while processing your request” even after the above steps, your hosting environment may not have sufficient resources or there may be a deeper configuration issue.

Conclusion #

In most cases, this alert is related to either missing SEO functionality or server resource constraints. By ensuring an active SEO plugin, reducing or disabling image optimization, and checking PHP configuration limits, you can usually resolve the “An error occurred while processing your request” message and successfully generate your articles—Longreads included—without interruption.