"Time out" errors

[jgold723]

I examined our server error log today and found hundreds of "Time Out" errors like the following:

[Thu Aug 07 11:51:47 2014] [warn] [client 24.108.96.29] Timeout waiting for output from CGI script /etc/apache2/gs-bin/php-stable, referer: http://quinceandco.com/store/index.p...=index&cPath=2
[Thu Aug 07 11:51:47 2014] [error] [client 24.108.96.29] Script timed out before returning headers: php-stable, referer: http://quinceandco.com/store/index.p...=index&cPath=2

Any idea what these mean and how I might track down the source?

[lhungil]

... Timeout waiting for output from CGI script /etc/apache2/gs-bin/php-stable ...

It would appear this error is intermittent (as I can currently access that page with no problems). The error message itself is telling you: "the web server's configured timeout waiting for output from PHP was exceeded".

Most likely this is a question you will need to ask your hosting provider to research (as they have access to the server configurations and logs).

[jgold723]

A couple of follow up questions:

1) Is there a recommended max execution time for ZC? It appears that the PHP.ini file in my account sets this at 300 seconds;
2) How do I find out why the timeouts are occurring? The host was no help -- they just said "something's wrong with the script."

[lhungil]

The error message above is not indicating PHP encountered a timeout. It is indicating the timeout configured in Apache for the CGI module used to call PHP was exceeded while waiting to receive output.

If the error happened for EVERY request to the same PHP script, I might accept the "something's wrong with the script." response... Can you correlate the error timestamp with a request for a specific URL?

Otherwise if this was a request for URL listed above, I'm not running into any issues currently getting to this URL... In this case, it indicates something was causing the script to run MUCH slower than usual at the time the errors were logged. Perhaps an I/O issue on the server... Perhaps an issue with MySQL... Perhaps an overloaded server...

It "might" help if you can isolate certain times of day when these errors happen to occur... If you see a pattern, then you can tell the hosting provider "The error seems to mostly occur around XXXX."... Although they SHOULD be able to look at your log files, the server log files, and collected performance data and help...

It might also be good to see what is different on your site from a stock Zen Cart installation... Or to look into upgrading to Zen Cart 1.5.1+ (includes a basic query cache, reducing the strain on the MySQL server)...

[RodG]

A couple of follow up questions:

1) Is there a recommended max execution time for ZC?

Sorry. I don't know.

It appears that the PHP.ini file in my account sets this at 300 seconds;

300 seconds (5mins) is more than enough. No one is going to hang around that long for a script to execute (other than possibly the site admin that is uploading some very large files using a very slow link)

Cheers
RodG