3.1.9 to 3.2: "The installer detected a timeout" error

[Nikola]

It worked fine for me david. And I could swear that some extensions does not clear cache. On larger boards when you send request to clear the cache it would take more time than server can process resulting in a timeout when clearing cache. But in any case, this is what worked for me.

[david63]

It worked fine for me

Just because it worked for you does not mean that it is right - it was luck. Next time you may end up breaking your board.

On larger boards when you send request to clear the cache it would take more time than server can process resulting in a timeout when clearing cache.

I have never heard, nor experienced, that and if you have evidence that such a situation exists then you need to raise a bug report.

[Nikola]

I have never heard, nor experienced, that and if you have evidence that such a situation exists then you need to raise a bug report.

Yeah I will. On a side note, I had issues updating to phpbb 3.2 and I only thing that worked for me is that I kept trying.

[david63]

I have never heard, nor experienced, that and if you have evidence that such a situation exists then you need to raise a bug report.

Yeah I will.

Haven't seen the bug report yet!

[uygar2580]

5. When you get timeout message don't delete anything from the files such as lock file.
6. Don't reload that TAB before error about timeout appears (this is very crucial)
7. Wait for error to appear then reload the tab. It might take 10 times, it might take 200 times but it will work eventually.
8. Go back to extensions and enable one by one (data from them won't be gone don't worry) Every time you enable the ext clear cache leaving only index and htaccess file. There is a quite number of extensions done for 3.2. Use those.
- Once it's done you will see success message and probably some errors like "undefined offset on a certain line" and auth.php. Regardless, your board should be fully functional after that. Make sure to repair the DB if needed. Keep in mind that you need to keep trying. Don't reload the tab before timeout message appeared.

Thats worked for me after 3 reloads. Thanks.

[EarthSongWoman]

I have this problem and have tried the above solutions, none of which have worked.. though I am no longer getting it when I try and use the update button on the instalation front end, it goes through that seemingly ok, no errors or anything actually - get to the database update stage and it updates a few files then I get this error.. Please help. Thank you.

[pkbarbiedoll]

I'm also getting this error. I've tried reloading the page dozens of times with zero success.

Are there any install scripts that can be patched so this error doesn't appear?

[janus_zonstraal]

Did you check your config.php?
Change mysql in mysqli

Or give more details what you did and how you upgrade

[pkbarbiedoll]

I had a working copy of 3.1 which was updated to 3.2 a few months ago. I showed 3.2 as the version in the ACP.
But I noticed yesterday that the changelog doc appeared to be from the earlier 3.1 release.

So I wanted to make a completely fresh installation of 3.2 scripts.

I reset the board style to prosilver, made a backup of the existing scripts, then removed all of the scripts. I downloaded a fresh copy of 3.2 from phpbb.com. Unpacked it to my forum directory, then copied my old config.php file overwriting the default from the install zip file.

config.php
(yes, I run mysql over SSL, and yes it works fine - my board was 100% functional before (and I can mv the old board directory back in place and it works again no problems)

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$dbms = 'phpbb\\db\\driver\\mysqli_ssl';
$dbhost = 'db.example.com';
$dbport = '';
$dbname = 'phpbb';
$dbuser = 'myuser';
$dbpasswd = '1234';
$table_prefix = 'phpbb_';
$phpbb_adm_relative_path = 'adm/';
$acm_type = 'phpbb\\cache\\driver\\file';

@define('PHPBB_INSTALLED', true);

I accessed the board/install/ folder, which displayed the "Overview / Update / Convert" tabs. I clicked the Update tab, then clicked the Update button. Immediately (as in less than a second), the error appears:

Code: Select all

The installer detected a timeout

The installer has detected a timeout, you may try to refresh the page, which may lead to data corruption. We suggest that you either increase your timeout settings or try to use the CLI.

Is there a script in the installer that can be patched or modified to bypass this error? There is not an actual timeout happening, since this message appears just as soon as I click the Update button. It's no different from the others in this thread who posted the same result.

[janus_zonstraal]

Maybe be course your database and files are already 3.2?

Can you access the board?

[pkbarbiedoll]

From my post above yours:

my board was 100% functional before (and I can mv the old board directory back in place and it works again no problems)

[janus_zonstraal]

My question was, can you access your board now?

[MoundTown]

Okay so, I've had same issue when I was updating. What you can do (it will work 100%) is to be very patient.

1. Backup the files and the database before doing update
2. Please note that some extension won't work in phpBB 3.2 so disable them one by one (david correction)
3. That will disable all extensions you have.
4. Run the installer/updater to phpbb 3.2
5. When you get timeout message don't delete anything from the files such as lock file.
6. Don't reload that TAB before error about timeout appears (this is very crucial)
7. Wait for error to appear then reload the tab. It might take 10 times, it might take 200 times but it will work eventually.
8. Go back to extensions and enable one by one (data from them won't be gone don't worry) Every time you enable the ext clear cache leaving only index and htaccess file. There is a quite number of extensions done for 3.2. Use those.
- Once it's done you will see success message and probably some errors like "undefined offset on a certain line" and auth.php. Regardless, your board should be fully functional after that. Make sure to repair the DB if needed. Keep in mind that you need to keep trying. Don't reload the tab before timeout message appeared.

This is ridiculous. I have reloaded that tab well over 100 times and I see no reason to believe that anything will change after another 100.

[Toxyy]

I've had a few clients who's forums had this error because they had very large databases. I forget which file does the trick, you only need one of these, but I use them all because I'm too lazy to figure it out.

So here is the problem: the server php settings have a maximum time for php scripts. For large boards it takes a while, but you run into the time limit, so you run into a timeout setting.

Here is what has worked and fixed the issue on every single one:

Add this somewhere in your .htaccess in your root directory:

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<IfModule php5_module>
   php_flag allow_url_fopen On
   php_flag allow_url_include On
   php_flag asp_tags Off
   php_flag display_errors Off
   php_value max_execution_time 1500
   php_value max_file_uploads 500
   php_value max_input_time 900
   php_value max_input_vars 1000
   php_value memory_limit 228M
   php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 14400
</IfModule>

Add a file named php.ini to your root directory with this:

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allow_url_fopen = On
allow_url_include = On
asp_tags = Off
display_errors = Off
enable_dl = Off
file_uploads = On
max_execution_time = 1500
max_file_uploads = 500
max_input_time = 900
max_input_vars = 1500
memory_limit = 228M
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440
upload_max_filesize = 228M

Add a file named .user.ini to your root directory with this:

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[PHP]
allow_url_fopen = On
allow_url_include = On
asp_tags = Off
display_errors = Off
max_execution_time = 1500
max_file_uploads = 500
max_input_time = 900
max_input_vars = 1500
memory_limit = 228M
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440
upload_max_filesize = 228M

This will fix your issue. If it still doesn't, add a 0 on some of the input times and that will fix it. I don't know which one actually fixes it.

To check if it actually updated your settings, add a file named phpinfo.php with this:

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<?php
   phpinfo();
?>

visit the file, and you can find your variables to see if they've updated.

Good luck!

[david63]

@Toxyy

Apart from being vague the information in your last post will not work on hosts that do not allow modification of php.ini that way - and that will be the majority of shared hosts.