Browser timeout NOT PHP end of headers

kangaroo232002

I posted a thread a few days ago, thinking that it was PHP dying, despite using set_time_limit(), but after observing the activity of my system(WINXP) PHP.exe in fact carries on using resources after the 'end' of the browser. So i came to the conclusion that there was a time limit specified with the browser.

My php script writes constantly to the screen, so I think i need something else to make the browser not timeout. I'm hoping there is a universal solution for all browsers, but I think that would be naive.

Any solution would be great, at the moment I'm using either mozilla firefox v1.0 or IE 6.

Many thanks,

Ian.

tsinka

Hi,

you wrote that the script sends data constantly to the browser (while loop ?). In that case use flush() to force PHP to send the data because with standard settings the data will be sent after the PHP script execution ends (which doesn't happen if you have something like an endless loop).

Do you print e.g. HTML table(s) constantly or just data ?

One problem with scripts that never end is that they might cause the web server or the complete server to crash in worst case or might slow down the system.

Thomas

kangaroo232002

the following is what i use to print to the screen, which creates a constant "status" message on my web trawler. Its not an endless loop, just a very long one with a number of parts to it.

function write_status($message) {
	$message = str_replace("\n"," ",$message);
	$message = str_replace("'","\'",$message);
	?>

<script language="javascript">
	document.getElementById('barholder').innerHTML = '<font class=qtext><br> <?php echo $message; ?></font>';
</script>
<?php
}

This prints the $message into a table with id= "barholder" when its called at a number of points within the script while the page is loading so the user knows whats going on. flushing isnt the problem, as the PHP script flushes, and this eventually flushes the browser as well, although not sometimes as quickly as i would like.

The browser on "long" trawls, usually after about 15 minutes (approx!) just says "Done" as if the page has finished loading, and then php.exe about 2 minutes later stops as well.

I'ev noticed that some trawlers in PHP have a keep_alive.txt file with a single full-stop in it "." but not sure if this has anything to do with the browser. Its not Apache, and its not PHP either (as no end of script errors) so I can only conclude that it has something to do with the browser time out limit, which isn't affected by the script still writing to it.

Any thoughts ? thanks, and apologies for not being overly clear in previous post.

kangaroo232002

i think i might have got the solution: although i am writing all the time to the browser, maybe the script hangs as the timeout cannot be predicted.

Hopefully, by altering the registry on the browser settings goto http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=813827
which may improve the situation.

if you dont fancy altering the registry found file called ietimeout.exe (didnt use it, but might be useful?)