PHP (an acronym for “Hypertext Preprocessorâ€) is a popular programming language widely used to build dynamic websites and web applications. It is an open-source general-purpose scripting language executed on a website server. However, if not appropriately optimized, PHP scripts can consume many server resources and slow website performance. Opt for a PHP hosting provider to guarantee seamless integration and optimized performance for PHP-based websites. Discover the ideal fit for your needs in our comprehensive list of top PHP hosting providers.
Top PHP Hosting Provider Picks
| Provider | User Rating | Best For | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | 4.8 | cPanel PHP | Visit FastComet |
 | 4.6 | Managed PHP | Visit Hostinger |
 | 4.0 | User-Friendliness | Visit IONOS |
At the end of this guide, you will be able to understand the following concepts about PHP time limit:
What Is PHP Time Limit?
PHP time limit is a setting that determines how long it will take an action to be executed on your site. It limits the maximum execution time for a PHP script and is usually measured in seconds. The PHP time limit’s default setting on most hosted sites is 30 seconds.
If the script or code required to load under the default time does not, the PHP will display a fatal error, indicating that the PHP has timed out. You can increase your PHP time execution to 60 seconds or more. However, PHP is critical to website performance optimization and shouldn’t take more than 3-4 seconds to load.
The Impact of PHP Time Limit on Website Speed and User Experience
Whether or not the PHP process on your website is fully executed, it always has either a positive or negative effect on your site. Below is the impact of the PHP time limit on website speed and user experience:
1. Slow Website Performance
The longer it takes for a PHP script to execute, the less scalable your website is. When a PHP script exceeds the time limit, it causes other servers, functions, and pages on your website to slow down significantly.
Exceeded PHP time limit results in a poor user experience, as visitors often face an error message display, uncompleted actions, or failed responses. This leaves users frustrated and eventually abandoning the website.
3. Error Messages
When a user’s page request over http/https exceeds the PHP time limit set, error messages, such as “maximum execution time exceeded†or a “500 Internal Server Errorâ€, will likely experience the white screen of death. Fatal error messages occurring when users run more extended operations on your site can be confusing and frustrating.
3. Reduced Functionality
Not all pages on your site will take longer to execute a command. It could be a single page exceeding the maximum execution time, affecting your website functionality. When a PHP script is terminated due to a time limit, it disrupts users from accessing specific website features and inability to complete certain tasks.
4. Increased Server Load
Poorly optimized PHP scripts that exceed the time limit can cause increased server load. Whenever a site is accessed, the server processes the data and executes its command. However, a delay in loading time will affect the server’s overall performance and increase the page load time. This ultimately results in a slower website performance for all users.
5. Poor Search Engine Rankings
It’s a known fact that search engines consider website speed as a ranking factor for any site. Users don’t have the patience to wait for an extended period before a page becomes responsive; in most cases, they leave your site for others. Slow website performance results in lower visibility and traffic to your site. Your site rankings in search engines are negatively impacted when the speed is too slow and receives fewer visitors.
6. Negative Impact on User’s Perception
Credibility and trust are factors users consider when visiting a site. The ability of your website to deliver quick responses and relevant information to users makes them perpetual visitors. However, when users are constantly faced with error messages and slow loading or execution time, it can negatively impact their perception of your website. Loss of credibility and trust among users also affects your business extensively.
Comparison of PHP Time Limit With Other Website Performance Factors
Adjusting the PHP time limit and the codes embedded into the script can enhance your website speed. However, the PHP time limit is just one of the several factors that affect website performance. That’s why developers need to understand their server’s subsystems to pinpoint and address other bottlenecks that affect website performance.
Here are some of the key website performance factors that should be considered alongside the PHP time limit:
1. Server Resources
The server resources, such as the Central Processing Unit (CPU), memory, disk I/O, and network, significantly impact your website’s performance. The CPU and system memory are essential components in determining the general speed of your computer. It also executes users’ requests, interacts with and manages other resources of your system.
Poorly optimized scripts can consume too many resources and cause the CPU to process too many requests, causing your website to function slower.
2. Code Optimization
Many sites run with codes that are poorly optimized. Sometimes these codes don’t infuse meaningful value into their site’s functionality and overall scalability. Excess of extra code, such as visual animations, chatbots, widgets, tracking pixels, and monitoring tools, embedded into your website and working simultaneously can reduce performance.
Optimizing code for performance by removing unnecessary classes in code compilation or using object-oriented programming to obey Model-View-Controller can help reduce the time it takes to execute a command, leading to faster website performance. In addition, ensure you’re using JSON data type instead of XML, and avoid repeating variable declarations.
3. Caching
Caching allows storing data from commonly accessed website content in the browser cache. This prevents your system from reloading previous data from the server and gives you optimum performance benefits. Caching works effectively in reducing server load and speeds up website performance.
4. Image Optimization
Pages with many images and large image sizes slow down website performance. When a page weighs more than 2 MB, it’s considered large and needs to be optimized. In addition, all images on a page require full load time, which can significantly drag the page load time if they are many and large.
Optimizing images through compression and resizing can significantly improve website speed. Additionally, using the proper image formats can also boost your website performance.
5. Content Delivery Network (CDN)
The farther the distance between a device sending an HTTP request and the server executing the request, the longer it takes your website to load and deliver responses. Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can remedy this issue.
CDN helps distribute website content to servers around the world, reducing the distance content must travel to reach users. CDNs effectively bring files closer to users and, thus, improve your website’s performance.
Common Issues Related to PHP Time Limit
While it’s possible to increase the PHP time limit, it’s more important to know the common issues related to the PHP time limit. If the actual cause of hitting the time limit is linked to other factors on your site, addressing only PHP will become a temporary solution, as the problem will persist.
The common issues related to PHP time limit include the following:
1. Scripts Timing Out
Script timeout is one of the most common issues related to the PHP time limit. When a script takes too long to execute, it can exceed the time limit and cause the script to stop running. There are many reasons why a script may time out. This may occur due to a large volume of queries or the server receiving much traffic. Another reason could be heavy and complex code compilation.
There are several ways to prevent script timeout. One is to use the inbuilt sleep function of PHP to delay the execution of the following query. You can also use AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) to handle Asynchronous or multiple requests. Lastly, you can increase the PHP Time Limit required to execute the scripts.
2. Memory Usage
Another common issue related to PHP Time Limit is memory usage. A PHP memory limit is per script, with a lower setting of 128M. If a PHP script utilizes too much memory, it can cause the server to slow down or crash, affecting other scripts running on the server.
You can plan your server setting by executing the phpinfo() function to see the memory constraints of your server administration. Every script should only use a small amount of RAM on your system, except if you have a particular app requiring more resources than one script. Optimizing memory usage can help avoid memory-related issues.
3. Inefficient Code
More efficient code equals efficient website performance. Poorly structured code causes scripts to exceed the PHP time limit, which takes longer to execute and leads to a bad user experience. Inefficient codes, such as invalid HTML markup, resource-hungry processes, or JavaScript errors, can cause a significant drawdown in performance.
4. Resource Constraints
Resource constraints such as CPU usage or disk I/O are other PHP time limit-related issues affecting script performance. The more processes a server has to perform to respond to a visitor, the slower it becomes. Hence, when running a PHP script, ensure your system does not use vital resources to carry out unnecessary tasks.
5. Server Configuration Issues
Server configuration issues such as outdated versions of PHP or conflicting extensions also affect the PHP time limit. Subsequently, you might need to modify your website’s PHP configuration and solve other issues, like plugins, to enhance your website performance.
Sometimes it occurs that the PHP you’re using is outdated and cannot effectively run the plugins on your website. This can cause page loading issues and also display a fatal error message. Updating your PHP or modifying its configuration will make more resources available for your website and improve its performance.
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Best Practices for Fixing PHP Time Limit Issues
You can employ several fixes to resolve the PHP time limit issues. Below are some of the best practices you can use:
1. Increase the Time Limit
One significant way to fix service script timeout is to increase the PHP time limit. You can do this using various methods, depending on your hosting server. First, you can increase the PHP time limit via the PHP.ini file. Although, some smaller shared hosted servers do not permit user access to the PHP.ini file.
If you have access and wish to extend the limit to 120 seconds or more, you can enter the following line of code: max_execution_time = 120; Alternately, you can use the set_time_limit (120) function in PHP code if you don’t have access to the PHP.ini file.
2. Optimize Code
The more code embedded in a browser page for it to load, the longer it will take for your website to become visible to users. Also, messy, inefficient, or bulky code can cause scripts to exceed the PHP time limit. Optimizing codes by removing elements that aren’t needed can help improve the execution time of PHP.
OPcache can be used to optimize the codes to meet the PHP code standard for WordPress on your server. It is one of the building block elements that enhances PHP performance, as it functions directly with the code-compiling process. In addition, Opcache will cache the already compiled codes, saving them from recompiling during subsequent requests.
3. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) comprises a variety of servers placed at specific geographic locations. CDN helps you store your website copies so users far from your central server can load the pages on your site quickly. Invariably, CDN assists your website performance by caching content and distributing it across multiple servers.
If your website uses jQuery, Google and Microsoft are the two most popular jQuery CDN options that you can use to load a page instead of your web server. jQuery utilizes a few lines of code compared to JavaScript and gets the same result, and this can work effectively to increase your website speed. There’s also the option of Cloudflare, a jetpack CDN for images and videos, which can help reduce the load on your server and improve performance.
4. Use a PHP Accelerator
PHP accelerators are tools that compile PHP scripts in memory and extensively improve the performance of PHP-based software. Due to PHP accelerators, it’s possible to run high-traffic sites powered by PHP apps. The advantages of using a PHP accelerator depend on various factors, including site optimization.
Some PHP accelerators are included in the core of some latest versions of PHP down to PHP 5.5, such as PHP Opcache, APCu, and Windows Cache Extension for PHP. For example, the PHP Opcache extension allows for faster execution of PHP codes through opcode caching.
- APCu is another latest release of the opcode caching system that supports userland caching of PHP variables. They are compatible with the newest version of PHP. You can install the APCu Backwards Compatibility Module to use APCu.
- The Windows Cache Extension for PHP also improves PHP applications on Windows and Windows servers.
5. Upgrade Your Server
If you’re running into resource constraints, upgrading your server may be necessary to ensure your application has the resources it needs to run smoothly. There are a variety of open-source PHP servers available on the internet, and the significant components of each include an operating system, web server, DBMS, and PHP.
Choosing the correct PHP framework depends on your requirement as a website developer. One of the most used open-source PHP servers is XAMPP. XAMPP is an easy-to-install PHP server for hosting software locally and does not demand additional techy knowledge to configure. In addition, XAMPP comes with pre-installed web tools, such as PHP, FileZilla, MySQL, PERL, and more.
- LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) is another server developed mainly for Linux operating systems having Apache web servers.
- LEMP stack is another common server alternative for LAMP, the sole difference being that it uses a separate web host server (Nginx, in place of Apache).
6. Monitor Performance
Monitoring the performance of your PHP application is essential for identifying and fixing issues related to the PHP time limit. Using a PHP server monitor helps you compile and analyze useful application information for making informed decisions. You get to see a high-level summary of your application performance, develop architectural maps, monitor applications Apdex, and quickly resolve errors.
PHP Application Performance Monitoring software grants code-level observability, helps organize data, troubleshoots, and query data using NRQL, and provides faster recovery and easier maintenance of your website.
7. Consult With Experts
If you’re experiencing persistent issues related to the PHP time limit, consulting with experts who can help you identify and fix underlying problems may be necessary. This is because the activities involved in increasing the PHP time limit are somewhat complicated and differ from one hosting provider to another. Hence, it is preferable to indulge in the service of a specialist.
You can also reach out to your hosting provider or the support team designated by your hosting provider. Request to know the possible means by which you can increase the PHP time limit, inquire if the values for max_execution_time can be raised, and the maximum range. You can extend further by requesting they alter the values on your behalf.
Conclusion
The PHP fatal error message is standard and can be frustrating and confusing for users, website developers, and businesses. Although, the PHP time limit is essential in managing the server resources of a website from being overused. However, if you’re experiencing these issues, the solutions we provided above will help you understand how the PHP time limit works and how to perform the needed troubleshooting.
Next Steps: What Now?
- Find the Best PHP Hosting Solution for 2023
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