ibase_pconnect strangeness

[Anon]

Using ibase_pconnect(), it seems to open a new connection to the db if the time between requests is longer than about 40 seconds. Even though i'm on the same host, same db, same username and password. Connections are only reused when page requests are rapid.

It also seems to be ignoring the limits i've set down in php.ini, ie
ibase.max_persistent = 10
ibase.max_links = 15
(these show up ok in phpinfo(); )

Any ideas??

Apache 1.3.22, PHP 4.1.0 (sapi), w2k sp2, Firebird RC 1.

Thanks,

John

[Anon]

Just for the knowledgebase:

Found the answer in the PHP archives. Apache creates a series of threads to service requests. The last active thread will always be used to handle a new request. Since, to start with, each thread has never seen the db before, it forces a new connection.

Connections are only reused when the value in MaxThreadsPerChild (Apache config file) is reached.
It defaults to 64 (I think). Lowering it to something like 5 makes things much better. Apparently if these threads are ever saturated by requests, a new process with 5 more threads will be created. (so I'm not actually limited to 5 simultanious users!)

I still don't know when the persistent db connections will die though... just keep waiting I guess... :-) 20 minutes and counting.

John