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Matomo Archiving Slow or Out of Memory on Large Sites

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Workaround available Matomo On-Premise Updated November 13, 2026Based on 4 user reportsHow we research

Quick answer

Disable browser archiving, run core:archive on a schedule, raise memory only for the archiver, trim segments, and use queued tracking with Redis and a tuned database on high-traffic sites.

Most likely fix: Move archiving to cron

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

  1. 1. Move archiving to cron

    1. Set enable_browser_archiving_triggering = 0 in config.ini.php (or in General Settings)
    2. Run core:archive every 30 to 60 minutes depending on tier
    Did this fix it?

  2. 2. Reduce the workload

    1. Keep only essential segments and custom reports
    2. Exclude unneeded URL query parameters and disable unused plugins
    3. Schedule outside peak hours
    Did this fix it?

  3. 3. Raise memory for the archiver only

    1. Use --php-cli-options="-d memory_limit=3G" on the core:archive command, or raise minimum_memory_limit_when_archiving in config
    2. Lowering concurrency helps if RAM is tight
    Did this fix it?

  4. 4. Follow the tier guidance

    1. For busy sites set time_before_today_archive_considered_outdated to 1800 or 3600
    2. Use Queued Tracking with Redis (sticky sessions recommended)
    3. Tune MySQL: innodb_buffer_pool_size 2G (Tier 1) or 20G (Tier 2) and consider a dedicated database server
    Did this fix it?

  5. 5. Parallelise carefully

    1. Use --concurrent-requests-per-website only for your busiest site, and only if database CPU is 20% or less, with gains diminishing beyond 2-3 processes
    Did this fix it?

Symptoms

Archiving runs for hours, PHP hits memory_limit, or reports for long periods time out.

Why it happens

  • Browser-triggered archiving on a busy site
  • Too many segments and custom reports
  • Yearly or multi-month periods and large roll-up sites
  • Database and PHP resources undersized for the tier
  • Default archive freshness of 10 seconds is far too frequent

This guide also covers

  • matomo archiving slow
  • matomo memory limit archiving
  • matomo core:archive taking too long

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