Server Time Limit

Learn how to set the time limit on your server and why you may need it.

Olga Tereshina avatar
Written by Olga Tereshina
Updated over a week ago

Every web server has a time limit within which it can process a request. For instance, if the time limit is set to 30 seconds, each request to X-Cart 5 can last no longer than 30 seconds, after which it will be terminated. It is not a problem for quick requests like opening the product page or logging in, but it may become a problem when running a long process like product import or cache rebuilding.

In such cases, X-Cart 5 tries to alter the server’s time limit (via the set_time_limit() function) and allow requests to last forever, but some server configurations do not allow X-Cart 5 to achieve the desired result. This article describes how you can set up your server to let long requests go through.

Several server configurations do not allow altering the time limit via the set_time_limit() function. We will walk through all the configurations that may cause problems with timeout and explain how you can set the time limit to 300 seconds. You can apply these changes yourself or ask your hosting team to perform the changes.

Apache + MOD_FCGID

Set the following parameters to 300 in your mod_fcgid config (usually it is the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/fcgid.conf) and restart the web server:

  • FcgidBusyTimeout

  • FcgidConnectTimeout

  • FcgidIdleTimeout

  • FcgidIOTimeout

  • FcgidProcessLifeTime

More info about mod_fcgid can be found here: http://httpd.apache.org/mod_fcgid/mod/mod_fcgid.html

MOD_FASTCGI + PHP-FPM

In this case, set the request_terminate_timeout parameter in your php-fpm.conf file to 300 and restart the webserver.

More info about php-fpm can be found here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.fpm.configuration.php

Nginx as Proxy

Try adding the proxy_read_timeout option into your virtual host configuration, for example:

proxy_read_timeout 300;

Nginx as Standalone Server + PHP-FPM

Try adding the fastcgi_read_timeout option into your php-fpm configuration, for example:

fastcgi_read_timeout 300;
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