Question

I have an action that occurs when a user goes to a url. The action involves a tremendous amount of insert-update ot a MYSQL database and takes a good minute to finish. I was wondering if this action continues even if a user switches to another page? I would expect so since PHP is server side. But i would like to have a clear explanation on this. Anyone?

Answer 1

No, the default operation of Apache and PHP is to terminate the script when the user disconnects. This termination can happen anytime after the connection is broken, so your script may run for hours, or could die instantly. Generally the kill occurs when the script attempts to do any output.

If you need to keep the script running in spite of user disconnects, then you’ll have to use

ignore_user_abort(TRUE);