HTTP 413 Payload Too Large — What It Means and How to Fix It

Common Causes

• Uploading a file (e.g., image, video, document) that exceeds the web server's maximum allowed upload size.
• Sending a large amount of data in a POST or PUT request body that surpasses the server's configured request body size limit.
• Misconfigured proxy servers or load balancers that have their own, lower, payload size limits than the origin server.

Code Examples to Handle HTTP 413

curl -I https://httpbin.org/status/413

fetch('https://httpbin.org/status/413')
  .then(response => {
    if (response.status === 413) {
      console.log('Handled Payload Too Large');
    }
  });

import requests

response = requests.get('https://httpbin.org/status/413')
if response.status_code == 413:
    print("Received Payload Too Large")

How to Fix It

1. **Client-side:** Reduce the size of the data being sent. This might involve compressing files, splitting large uploads into smaller chunks, or optimizing data structures.
2. **Server-side (Web Server):** Adjust the maximum request body size limit in the web server configuration (e.g., `client_max_body_size` in Nginx, `LimitRequestBody` in Apache, `maxRequestLength` in IIS/ASP.NET).
3. **Server-side (Application/Framework):** Check if the application framework or language has its own payload size limits that need to be increased (e.g., Node.js body-parser limits, PHP `upload_max_filesize` and `post_max_size`).

Related Status Codes