A memory system is disclosed, including a memory component and a processing device configured to decode one or more codewords saved to a memory region of the memory component, detect that a number of bit errors corresponding to the decoding of the codeword exceeds a correction capability of the processing device, and execute an error recovery routine to reduce the number of detected bit errors to within the correction capability. The error recovery routine can include error recovery operations that are sequentially executed either until the number of bit errors is successfully reduced to within the correction capability or until a set of the error recovery operations has been executed. The error recovery operations can be ordered according to one or more factors, including energy used to execute a respective error recovery operation, a duration of the respective operation, and/or a likelihood of success of the respective operation.