Question

I am using PHP with heroku. I keep on getting a request timeout error due to some database insertions and queries.

I added this line to all my php files in order to avoid this error:

set_time_limit(0);

However, I am still getting this error. Does heroku ignore this command?

I did a simple check to see if the time limit is being changed:

echo 'TIME : '.ini_get('max_execution_time');
set_time_limit(0);
echo 'TIME : '.ini_get('max_execution_time');

It is being changed from 30 (default value) to 0. Despite the change, I am still getting the error.

Also, I would like to add that the php file is being called by ajax.

Furthermore, as far as I know, php is not set to safe mode, so there is no reason why the command should be ignored.

Heroku suggests to use a background job, and as far as I can tell, it forces you if the task takes more than 30 seconds. Has anybody managed without using a background job?

Update: Tried using:

ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);

Still does not want to work

Answer 1

If you have to go over the 30s request timeout on Heroku, you’ll need to use a background job – there is no way around that (Heroku will just kill the request if it takes longer than 30 seconds). Heroku has some documentation on this.