Funny WordPress Elementor Problem I Found in My Potato Laptop

Context or Problem

If you’re running WordPress with Elementor on a low-spec local machine (a “potato laptop”) and using Flyenv with PHP 8.4.7, MySQL 9.0, and Nginx 1.25, you might run into this fatal error when using the Elementor plugin:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in
C:\Users\Administrator\wp672\wp-includes\Requests\src\Transport\Curl.php on
line 510

This happens specifically after activating Elementor and using the “Hello Elementor” starter theme.

Experiment

1. Use potato laptop
2. I use Flyenv to run this
3. Use PHP 8.4.7 latest
4. Use MySQL 9.0 latest
5. Use Nginx 1.25.5
6. Install fresh WordPress either latest version or the latest one “compatible” with Elementor 6.7.2
7. I use v6.7.2
8. Fresh install works fine, change permalink to %postname%
9. Everything works fine
10. Install Elementor plugin
11. It works
12. Use starter theme “Hello Elementor”
13. You will get this error

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in
C:\Users\Administrator\wp672\wp-includes\Requests\src\Transport\Curl.php on
line 510

14. My first approach was just using AI, I mean just increasing php.ini max_execution_time to 300 seconds because this is just development environment in potato laptop right? Who cares how long it takes.
15. It kinda worked, now showing 504 Gateway Timeout Nginx 1.25.5
16. So I assumed I also needed to increase the Nginx configuration
17. Asked AI what I can do about it, and got this:

# Increase timeouts for local development
client_body_timeout 300s;
client_header_timeout 300s;
send_timeout 300s;
proxy_read_timeout 300s;

18. Slapped that inside my Nginx vhost configuration to something like this:

server
{
    listen 80;
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name wp672.test wp672.test;
    index index.php index.html index.htm default.php default.htm default.html;
    root "C:/Users/Administrator/wp672";


    client_body_timeout 300s;
    client_header_timeout 300s;
    send_timeout 300s;
    proxy_read_timeout 300s;

42 collapsed lines
    ssl_certificate    "C:/Program Files/PhpWebStudy-Data/server/CA/1748849431656/CA-1748849431656.crt";
    ssl_certificate_key    "C:/Program Files/PhpWebStudy-Data/server/CA/1748849431656/CA-1748849431656.key";
    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_ciphers ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5:!RC4:!DHE;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_session_timeout 10m;

    #PHP-INFO-START
    include enable-php-84.conf;
    #PHP-INFO-END

    #REWRITE-START URL rewrite rules
    include "C:/Program Files/PhpWebStudy-Data/server/vhost/rewrite/wp672.test.conf";
    #REWRITE-END

    # Block access to sensitive files
    location ~ ^/(\.user.ini|\.htaccess|\.git|\.svn|\.project|LICENSE|README.md)
    {
        return 404;
    }

    # Allow SSL certificate verification directory
    location ~ \.well-known{
        allow all;
    }

    location ~ .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|swf)$
    {
        expires      30d;
        error_log off;
        access_log off;
    }

    location ~ .*\.(js|css)?$
    {
        expires      12h;
        error_log off;
        access_log off;
    }
    access_log  "C:/Program Files/PhpWebStudy-Data/server/vhost/logs/wp672.test.log";
    error_log  "C:/Program Files/PhpWebStudy-Data/server/vhost/logs/wp672.test.error.log";
}

19. Try to view my WordPress URL and now it works! Voila!
20. Then I reverted back the max_execution_time php.ini config since the problem was from Nginx, not from PHP
21. Re-tested and validated everything still works
22. It works!
23. Still paranoid, so I tried to add new page using Elementor builder UI
24. It opened the UI, I created a basic page, published it and see.
25. Alright, it works too!
26. Intrusive thought: “What if I use the latest version of WordPress now? Like v6.8.1?”
27. Let’s see
28. Use similar nginx configuration, restart Nginx
29. Install same plugin and themes
30. Open the URL and see
31. It didn’t work LOL
32. Guess I need to re-add the max_execution_time = 300 again in php.ini and see
33. Still didn’t work
34. Weird, I tried to view and reloaded again and now it takes longer time, it gave me hope
35. Then it worked!!
36. Do step 23–24 again
37. It works!

Outcome

• Setting max_execution_time = 300 in php.ini and updating Nginx timeouts to 300s allowed Elementor to run without fatal errors.
• The problem seems more on the Nginx side rather than PHP.
• WordPress 6.8.1 initially failed but eventually worked after increasing both timeouts and retrying access.
• Do not set max_execution_time too high (e.g., 3000) — it may trigger 502 Bad Gateway.
• Retry if you still see 504 Gateway Timeout — sometimes it just needs one more reload.

Possible Next Steps

• Keep using WordPress v6.8.1 since it proved to be working after configuration.
• Try some cache plugins looks fun.

References

• https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/
• https://github.com/xpf0000/FlyEnv
• https://flyenv.com