diff --git a/arangod/GeneralServer/HttpCommTask.cpp b/arangod/GeneralServer/HttpCommTask.cpp
index be3adc185b..bb109aa85b 100644
--- a/arangod/GeneralServer/HttpCommTask.cpp
+++ b/arangod/GeneralServer/HttpCommTask.cpp
@@ -36,9 +36,9 @@ using namespace arangodb;
 using namespace arangodb::basics;
 using namespace arangodb::rest;
 
-size_t const HttpCommTask::MaximalHeaderSize = 1 * 1024 * 1024;      //   1 MB
-size_t const HttpCommTask::MaximalBodySize = 512 * 1024 * 1024;      // 512 MB
-size_t const HttpCommTask::MaximalPipelineSize = 512 * 1024 * 1024;  // 512 MB
+size_t const HttpCommTask::MaximalHeaderSize = 2 * 1024 * 1024;       //  2 MB
+size_t const HttpCommTask::MaximalBodySize = 1024 * 1024 * 1024;      //  1 GB
+size_t const HttpCommTask::MaximalPipelineSize = 1024 * 1024 * 1024;  //  1 GB
 size_t const HttpCommTask::RunCompactEvery = 500;
 
 HttpCommTask::HttpCommTask(GeneralServer* server, TRI_socket_t sock,
diff --git a/arangosh/Import/ImportFeature.cpp b/arangosh/Import/ImportFeature.cpp
index 5ce571a610..b1fb92ef79 100644
--- a/arangosh/Import/ImportFeature.cpp
+++ b/arangosh/Import/ImportFeature.cpp
@@ -161,6 +161,16 @@ void ImportFeature::validateOptions(
                       StringUtils::join(positionals, ", ");
     FATAL_ERROR_EXIT();
   }
+
+  static unsigned const MaxBatchSize = 768 * 1024 * 1024;
+
+  if (_chunkSize > MaxBatchSize) {
+    // it's not sensible to raise the batch size beyond this value 
+    // because the server has a built-in limit for the batch size too 
+    // and will reject bigger HTTP request bodies
+    LOG(WARN) << "capping --batch-size value to " << MaxBatchSize;
+    _chunkSize = MaxBatchSize;
+  }
 }
 
 void ImportFeature::start() {
diff --git a/scripts/startLocalCluster.sh b/scripts/startLocalCluster.sh
index d0924bc501..fe83e3ed53 100755
--- a/scripts/startLocalCluster.sh
+++ b/scripts/startLocalCluster.sh
@@ -96,6 +96,7 @@ start() {
     PORT=$2
     mkdir cluster/data$PORT
     echo Starting $TYPE on port $PORT
+    mkdir -p cluster/apps$PORT 
     build/bin/arangod -c none \
                 --database.directory cluster/data$PORT \
                 --cluster.agency-endpoint tcp://127.0.0.1:$BASE \