I have a PHP script that will be executed by requests from the application admins. It does lots of stuff and takes at least 20 minutes(depending on the database size)
the Apache TimeOut directive is set to 300(5 minutes) which closes the connection and returns 500 status code after my PHP script is finished if it takes longer time to execute
Setting the PHP ini max_execution_time for long time for this script is useless.
<?php
// long script
ini_set("max_execution_time", 3600);// 1 hour
// Apache still responses with the same "Connection: close" header and 500 status code
And I don't want to change the entire Apache TimeOut directive just for those couple of scripts, because if I did, any request will be able to take very long time which makes a scope for DDOS vulnerabilities, is this right?
Is there any way to allow this script only to run longer at the Apache level ?
Have you tried PHP's set_time_limit() method?
https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.set-time-limit.php
In addition to setting the initial execution time, the manual says that calling it resets the time expended to zero when called, and starts the counter again to the limit provided.
So if you want to be sure, you could just call set_time_limit(0) (0 == no limit) regularly throughout your script to make sure that you don't ever hit a limit (even though you're setting an infinite limit by passing in 0).
I am using jquery ajax to send the url of a file (csv file) located on the server to my php script so as to process it.
The csv file contains telephone calls. If i have a file with even 10.000 calls everything is ok. But if i try a big file with like for example 20000 calls then i get an Ajax Error 0 . I check for server responce with firebug but i get none.
This behaviour occurs after like 40mins of w8ing for the php script to end. So why do i get this error on big files only? Does it have to do with apache, mysql or the server itself? Anyone able to help will be my personal hero cause this is driving me nuts.
I need a way to figure out whats happening exactly but firebug wont return a server responce. Any other way i can find out whats happening?
I checked the php error log and it reports nothing on the matter
Thanks in advance.
The script may have timed out:
See your php.ini file
max_execution_time
max_input_time ;# for the max time an input can be processed
Were your PHP.ini is depends on your enviroment, more information: http://php.net/manual/en/ini.php
Check:
max_input_time
This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to parse input data, like POST and GET. It is measured from the moment of receiving all data on the server to the start of script execution.
max_execution_time
This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to run before it is terminated by the parser. This helps prevent poorly written scripts from tying up the server. The default setting is 30. When running PHP from the command line the default setting is 0.
Also
Your web server can have other timeout configurations that may also interrupt PHP execution. Apache has a Timeout directive and IIS has a CGI timeout function. Both default to 300 seconds. See your web server documentation for specific details.
First enable php error by placing below code at top of the php file.
error_reporting(E_ALL);
Then as Shamil explained in this answer, checkout your max_execution_time settings of your php.
To check max_execution time, open your php.ini file and search for that, and then change it to a maximum value of say one hour (3600).
I hope this will fix your issue.
Thank you
I am running a php script as a cron job that might take very long time to finish. It will create a massive xml file and save it.
What should I think of if I implement it?
One thing I do is set max_execution_time for a long time:
ini_set('max_execution_time', 300);
Is there anything else I should do? Increase memory limit?
Does it help if put header "keep-alive"?
What can I do to make sure the script will always run until everything neccessary is done?
You can remove the execution time limit by using the set_time_limit function passing 0 as parameter:
set_time_limit(0);
Adding HTTP headers won't help because as it is a cronjob script, you are not dealing with a browser.
I have a backup script which backups up all files for a website to a zip file (using a script similar to the answer to this question). However, for large sites the script times out before it can complete.
Is there any way I can extend the length of time available for the script to run? The websites run on shared Windows servers, so I don't have access to the php.ini file.
If you are in a shared server environment, and you don’t have access to the php.ini file, or you want to set php parameters on a per-site basis, you can use the .htaccess file (when running on an Apache webserver).
For instance, in order to change the max_execution_time value, all you need to do is edit .htaccess (located in the root of your website, usually accesible by FTP), and add this line:
php_value max_execution_time 300
where 300 is the number of seconds you wish to set the maximum execution time for a php script.
There is also another way by using ini_set function in the php file
eg. TO set execution time as 5 second, you can use
ini_set('max_execution_time', 300); //300 seconds = 5 minutes
Please let me know if you need any more clarification.
set time limit comes to mind, but may still be limited by php.ini settings
set_time_limit(0);
http://php.net/manual/en/function.set-time-limit.php
Simply put; don't make a HTTP request to start the PHP script. The boundaries you're experiencing are set because you're using a HTTP request, which means you can have a time-out. A better solution would be to implement this using a "cronjob", or what Microsoft calls "Scheduled tasks". Most hosting providers will allow you to run such a task at set times. By calling the script from command line, you don't have to worry about the time-outs any more, but you're still at risk of running into memory issues.
If you have a decent hosting provider though, why doesn't it provide daily backups to start with? :)
You can use the following in the start of your script:
<?php
if(!ini_get('safe_mode')){
set_time_limit(0); //0 in seconds. So you set unlimited time
}
?>
And at the end of the script use flush() function to tell PHP to send out what it has generated.
Hope this solves your problem.
Is the script giving the "Maximum execution time of xx seconds exceeded" error message, or is it displaying a blank page? If so, ignore_user_abort might be what you're looking for. It tells php not to stop the script execution if the communication with the browser is lost, which may protect you from other timeout mechanisms involved in the communication.
Basically, I would do this at the beginning of your script:
set_time_limit(0);
ignore_user_abort(true);
This said, as advised by Berry Langerak, you shouldn't be using an HTTP call to run your backup. A cronjob is what you should be using. Along with a set_time_limit(0), it can run forever.
In shared hosting environments where a change to the max_execution_time directive might be disallowed, and where you probably don't have access to any kind of command line, I'm afraid there is no simple (and clean) solution to your problem, and the simplest solution is very often to use the backup solution provided by the hoster, if any.
Try the function:
set_time_limit(300);
On windows, there is a slight possibility that your webhost allows you to over ride settings by uploading a php.ini file in the root directory of your webserver. If so, upload a php.ini file containing:
max_execution_time = 300
To check if the settings work, do a phpinfo() and check the Local Value for max_execution_time.
Option 1: Ask the hosting company to place the backups somewhere accesible by php, so the php file can redirect the backup.
Option 2: Split the backup script in multiple parts, perhaps use some ajax to call the script a few times in a row, give the user a nice progress bar and combine the result of the script calls in a zip with php and offer that as a download.
I have a localhost webpage that occasionally splits out broken HTML midway through the page. This will also happen with images, (although I suspect because they are very large in size 1200x2000px)
But this normally will happen during a database while ($data=mysql_fetch_contents($arr)) loop.
Has anyone seen this before and what did you do to correct this?
It sounds like the PHP script may be timing out in the middle of execution, that is, run for longer than is allowed.
If the script is expected to run for a long time, you could try changing how long the script is allowed to run with the set_time_limit function, or the max_execution_time directive in php.ini.
Finally found the answer was a buffer overflow issue.
Placing this code at the end of each while loop:
#ob_flush();
Fixed the problem.