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Problems Exporting Entries

  1. I am having problems exporting entries of this form:

    https://loanapp.firstamerican.org/

    I can specify a small range of a few days and sometimes successfully export a CSV file.

    If I leave the date fields blank or specify a wider range, I get this error:

    Firefox can't find the file at https://loanapp.firstamerican.org/wp-admin/admin.php?page=gf_export OR I get a blank CSV file.

    I've had my webhost increase PHP memory to 32mb.

    Here's what they said:

    "I have checked your server PHP logs sent to /var/log/messages, and I do see some evidence that would point to a PHP memory limit issue, though it is not definitive. First, /var/log/messages will store logged information related to a PHP monitoring module - Suhosin. This module shows warnings that WordPress is attempting to allocate 32 MB of memory and is getting rejected as this is over the value defined in your /etc/php.ini:

    [root@firstamerican vhosts]# tail -1 /var/log/messages
    Nov 10 14:46:50 firstamerican suhosin[31791]: ALERT-SIMULATION - script tried to increase memory_limit to 33554432 bytes which is above
    the allowed value (attacker '127.0.0.1', file '/var/www/vhosts/loanapp.firstamerican.org/wordpress/wp-includes/default-constants.php',
    line 43)

    Additionally, I checked the Apache error log to see if this script was generating any out of memory errors related to this, but I could not find any. Finally, I have checked your Database size for the 'firstamerican' database, and it is not large enough to cause any MySQL related memory errors.

    To mitigate these issues with your form, I have increased the memory_limit in /etc/php.ini from 16M to 32M. This has halted the Suhosin alerts, I expect that this will resolve your issues; however, since this does not appear to be generating direct PHP errors I cannot be certain. If you continue to see any issues, please let me know exactly how I may replicate them. I would like to make sure that your Wordpress installation is operating to your satisfaction."

    After that, the problem was still happening, so they have also increased the following values in php.ini:

    upload_max_filesize
    post_max_size
    max_execution_time
    max_input_time
    memory_limit

    The issue is still happening and I'm not sure what to try next.

    Posted 12 years ago on Saturday November 19, 2011 | Permalink
  2. After they increased the RAM you still have an error? What errors are logged when it fails now?

    You are running out of memory when trying to export a large set of entries. Short of analyzing the plugin to find room for improvement, you need to get more RAM from your host. Unless you are getting a different error now, with 32MB of RAM. If so, please post that error.

    Can you describe the data you're trying to export? How many entries and how much data in each entry (number of fields, any large quantities of text or anything stored in the entry)?

    Posted 12 years ago on Saturday November 19, 2011 | Permalink
  3. Yes, after they increased the RAM, we still have an error. Rackspace said "does not appear to be generating direct PHP errors" after the memory increase but I still can't export the entries.

    There are 280 entries, about 305 fields. No large quantities of text, no uploads.

    Posted 12 years ago on Saturday November 19, 2011 | Permalink
  4. 305 fields per entry? Wow. Is it possible to increase the memory to 64MB or 128MB as a test, even though there are no memory errors being logged. All signs point to a PHP memory issue.

    The alternative is to export more frequently for shorter time spans. Smaller chunks will probably not run into the php memory issue.

    Posted 12 years ago on Saturday November 19, 2011 | Permalink
  5. I was experiencing the same issue trying to export my form with ~235 fields. The fields are all short text and numeric data. PHP was set to 64M of memory and no errors are being logged by apache in the error_log. Increasing the PHP memory limit to 96M fixes the problem.

    On another note, submitting the form is also taking quite a long time, users were double submitting before I added some jquery to disable the button after submit.

    Posted 12 years ago on Monday November 28, 2011 | Permalink
  6. It's a memory issue. The error reported above is an out of memory error. This means you need to increase your available PHP memory further. 32 MB is a relatively small amount. Ideally you should have a minimum of 64 MB but i'd actually recommend 128 MB or more for most sites. The more data and the larger the form, the more processing required to parse and return that data. You'll need to increase the memory to more than 32 MB. I would suggest 64 MB or ideally 128 MB.

    Posted 12 years ago on Monday November 28, 2011 | Permalink
  7. Great. Thanks guys. Rackpace increased the memory to 128MB and they seemed to do the trick. I can export all entries for now.

    Posted 12 years ago on Friday December 2, 2011 | Permalink

This topic has been resolved and has been closed to new replies.