Fix a slow WordPress admin with LiteSpeed Cache

Your WordPress admin area is slow or unresponsive, and the site itself is fine. Applies to shared, reseller and Premium hosting running LiteSpeed Cache.

What causes it

LiteSpeed Cache checks whether object caching is available by looking at which PHP extensions are enabled, then attempting a connection to the corresponding service.

If an extension is enabled but the service is not running or not configured, that connection attempt waits for a timeout — on every admin page load. The site front end is unaffected because it is served from page cache; only wp-admin, which is never cached, is slow.

The usual cause is the memcached extension being enabled. Memcached has been retired on WebGee, so there is nothing for it to connect to — see Memcached is no longer available.

Fix it

Which fix depends on whether you want object caching, which is worth having.

If you want object caching — configure Redis

The right answer for most sites. Object caching makes the admin area substantially faster, which is the opposite of the problem you are having.

Follow Enable Redis object caching. Once Redis is running and LiteSpeed is pointed at it, the connection succeeds immediately and the delay disappears.

If you do not want object caching — disable the extensions

1. In cPanel, open Select PHP Version.
2. Select Extensions.
3. Untick memcached.
4. Untick redis as well, only if you are not using Redis anywhere.

Check it worked

Load a few wp-admin pages. They should respond normally.

If you configured Redis, confirm the status under LiteSpeed Cache → Cache → Object reads Passed.

If it is still slow

Object cache timeouts are the most common cause but not the only one:

• WP-Cron running on page load — see Replace WP-Cron with a real cron job.
• A slow plugin — trace it with PHP X-Ray.
• Resource limits — see Fix a 503 Resource Limit Reached error.

Related

• Enable Redis object caching
• Improve a slow WordPress or WooCommerce dashboard