Why do some products not fully import into WooCommerce?

When you create a large variable product in WooCommerce through our WordPress plugin, it can happen that not all variations are received correctly. A product with hundreds of variations often results in a JSON file that’s several megabytes in size. While everything may work flawlessly in your local environment, the live server might only process part of the data through the REST API. This can lead to situations where, for example, only seven variations appear even though hundreds were sent.

Why this problem occurs

The issue usually doesn’t come from your code but from how the web server and PHP handle large requests.
When a REST request contains too much data, the server may partially truncate or reject the JSON payload. WordPress then receives only part of the information and decodes it as if it were complete. As a result, the process appears successful, but many variations are missing.

This happens due to input limitations. Both PHP and the web server have configuration limits that determine how much data can be processed per request. These limits are there to protect the server, but they can be too restrictive when working with large WooCommerce products.

Check your server limits

To determine whether these limits are too low, you can review the current configuration on your environment.
Typical settings can be found in the php.ini file or via the WordPress system information screen.

Pay special attention to:

• post_max_size – defines the maximum amount of data allowed in a POST request
• upload_max_filesize – controls the maximum file size for uploads
• memory_limit – determines how much memory PHP is allowed to use
• max_input_vars and max_input_nesting_level – affect how many and how deeply nested variables can be processed

If these limits are set too low, your JSON may only be partially read. For large variable products, the request size can easily exceed 5 MB, which may trigger these restrictions.

By reviewing and adjusting these limits where appropriate, you can ensure that all product variations are received correctly through the WooCommerce REST API.