Cron to run long php script

[tampriscilla]

I tried to set up a cron job to run the php:

15 /usr/bin/php -q http://testing.com/generateImage.php

The task of this is to generate a batch of images every 15mins. The image generation process is quite long (could last for few mins) but the cron job seems only run the first few lines and then quit.

I have already add :
ignore_user_abort(1); // run script in background
set_time_limit(0); // run script forever
.....
at the script to make it run as long as it needs.

But still doesn't work 🙁

Does anyone know how to make it work?

[bradgrafelman]

What do you mean "it doesn't work" or "it quits" ? Are you logging all PHP error messages and have error_reporting set to E_ALL ?

[blackhorse]

That could be memory issue instead of time issue when deal with image functions on large images.

ini_set("memory_limit", "256M");

Set up memory to a high value would solve the problem.

[dagon]

another possible problem - some hosts limit how long a script can run, for resource reasons, may want to check if that's the case.

[sneakyimp]

Another possible solution is to launch the script using [man]exec[/man] as a background process. This may or may not be permitted by your hosting company and shell scripts may still be limited by a server-imposed timeout limit.