Tweaking php For Maximum Execution Time For Scripts

by on April 18, 2007 · 3 comments· last updated at November 10, 2010

I've been trying to migrate my webblogs using WordPress inbuilt import facility. I've exported current blog as a xml file and downloaded to my desktop. Next I navigated to my new blog's admin area and clicked on Manage > Import. However import failed after importing 50-60% posts only.

I went through Apache and PHP log files and I realized that the script was timed out. How do I fix this problem under Linux / UNIX?

PHP by default places resource limits on all php scripts using the following three directives:

=> max_execution_time : Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds (default 30 seconds)

=> max_input_time : Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data (60 seconds)

=> memory_limit : Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (default 8MB)

Your php script was timed out because of resource limits. All you need to do is setup a new resource limits so that the script will get executed:

Open /etc/php.ini (or /etc/php5/php.ini) file:
# vi /etc/php.ini
Locate and setup new resource limits as follows:

# 600 seconds
max_execution_time = 600
# 120 seconds
max_input_time = 120
# 64 MB
memory_limit = 64M

Restart Apache or lighttpd web server:
# /etc/init.d/httpd restart
OR
# /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart



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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 DaiLaughing February 2, 2008 at 2:11 pm

php.ini was in /etc/php5/apache2 for me and the apache2 restart is done by:

/etc/init.d/apache restart

which might help others with Ubuntu. Thanks for the tip.

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2 AJi Prabowo November 10, 2010 at 1:08 pm

I surely find this article is useful to me. The script does work!!

Thanks.
Aji

Reply

3 Andrejs January 3, 2011 at 5:09 pm

My php script always stopped after 10-14 hours :(

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