problem when reading from remote DB and net goes off!

fazbob

in serious trouble here, fresher in php as well as sql..

sos needed pleez guys! :help:

So this is the issue: i wrote a php script that sends an sms to all members in our databse on the server, when i executed the script it sent about 2800 smsz instead of 18000 and i assume it was due to loss of intenet connection at some point (this is aphrika!!)- there is also the issue of buffer limits in php??

Anyways to prevent that from happening again i need to somehow detect when the internet connection goes off so as to "mark" where the script had reached at that time, then continue where it had reached (at the 'mark') when the connection comes back - this detecting of reconnection & continuing of the script can be done manually if php does not provide means for this - BUT the main thing would be:

detecting when internet connexn goes off and -
recording in which record of DB the execution had stopped

Some points that may help:
-there is an auto-increment field in the members table (called memIndex)
- i'll also appreciate an explanation to this:

when i executed the script i noticed that it started executing with random memIndex's (starting with 11987 then 998...) then it goes to some low memIndex and continues executing in increasing memIndex order... 8O - how can this be prevented?

I hope that wasnt too long and big a problem!! will really appreciate ur help..
thanx

twilson

Originally posted by fazbob
in serious trouble here, fresher in php as well as sql..

sos needed pleez guys! :help:

So this is the issue: i wrote a php script that sends an sms to all members in our databse on the server, when i executed the script it sent about 2800 smsz instead of 18000 and i assume it was due to loss of intenet connection at some point (this is aphrika!!)- there is also the issue of buffer limits in php??

You're using the mail() function to send these SMS's? Flooding 18,000 mail's into the server at once is probably an issue...

Maybe you should try slowing the execution of the mail() function by using some kind of timer?

Anyways to prevent that from happening again i need to somehow detect when the internet connection goes off so as to "mark" where the script had reached at that time, then continue where it had reached (at the 'mark') when the connection comes back - this detecting of reconnection & continuing of the script can be done manually if php does not provide means for this - BUT the main thing would be:

detecting when internet connexn goes off and -
recording in which record of DB the execution had stopped

How about setting a field to true in the database for the user when the mail successfully sent? It wouild create a lot of overhead but if it's a serious problem...

Some points that may help:
-there is an auto-increment field in the members table (called memIndex)
- i'll also appreciate an explanation to this:

when i executed the script i noticed that it started executing with random memIndex's (starting with 11987 then 998...) then it goes to some low memIndex and continues executing in increasing memIndex order... 8O - how can this be prevented?

Put "ORDER BY memIndex" at the end of your SQL query.

HTH,
Tom

fazbob

Hi Tom and thanx for ur reply... You did answer my qns well..

Only that i am not sending the smsz by the mail() function, instead i am using our sms gateway (which is on a different server) to send the smsz.

So i assume there is no way in PHP to detect when the internet connection is lost?

What about the possibility of my php script timing out.. exactly what does "timing out" mean? The fact that i am executing the script (which is remote on server1) from my pc, and in the script i am reading from a db (on the same server1) and then sending some parameters to server2 (the sms gateway) to send the sms... could you please tell me what timing out possibilities could occur?

many Thanx
Fazbob

twilson

Try putting

ini_set("max_execution_time",0);

at the top of your PHP script. That should stop the script from timing out.

As far as how your DB and SMS gateway work, I can't really help you there. :-\

Peace,
Tom