Inactivity Backup Errors

Same Issue that I am seeing – any updates


1. Trying to create backup archive …
Compression method is ZipArchive
WARNING: Job restart due to inactivity for more than 5 minutes.
2. Trying to create backup archive …
Compression method is ZipArchive
WARNING: Job restart due to inactivity for more than 5 minutes.
3. Trying to create backup archive …
Compression method is ZipArchive
WARNING: Job restart due to inactivity for more than 5 minutes.


Set for 3 retries… This means the backup archive was Not created, right? In the backup folder, are numerous 0-byte files.

a) Say clearly “Backup archive not created”
b) How do I set the timeout?
c) How do I estimate how long the timeout should be? (E.g. given how much was archived in 5 minutes, how long would the entire archive take?)
d) I want to back up all the files of my site, excluding folders with huge files (audio, video I can back up separately). The resulting file size might be over 2GB. If just a small Multi-Site blog takes more than 5 minutes, the full backup needs a Much larger setting!
e) Archive pieces are left in the backup folder. Are these useable? File names such as backwpup_1_2013-08-13_23-21-07.zip.Polk1B or backwpup_1_2013-08-13_23-21-07.zip.aZzqDu

I have added to my wp-config this line:
set_time_limit(3600); /* 1 hour */
This should be in the plugin, set before each database or ZIP operation: set_time_limit(600); // 10 minutes

Lernerconsult what you have added works?

@obit8 No, the set_time_limit in wp-config does not work, I was stating that I had tried it. Setting the overall WordPress time limit to 1 hr is of course defeating the purpose — it is to allow PHP to stop processes that are out of control. PHP allows specifying the timeout so you can give things like database queries that could take a little longer, or making .zip files which could take a long time, enough time to complete; that should be done in the plugin surrounding the specific time-consuming steps.

I also have problems with WordPress plugin updates not unzipping, so there may be a problem with the zip functions on my WordPress, or my server, or some other plugin conflicting with zip, or…. I don’t really have a way to test it, until I dive in to learning to write a PHP zip routine…

Somewhere I posted that the tar format (no compression, just put everything in one file) worked for the database backup but not for “database plus all my folders”

There are older versions of PHP that have bugs with zip/unzip, hang with no error messages — and make WordPress Update fail, make BackWPup compression fail, anything using zip/gzip.

https://lcblog.lernerconsult.com/2013-php-unzip-bug-makes-wordpress-updates-hang/ has PHP code that demonstrates the bug isn’t in WordPress or BackWPUp (if your version of PHP has the bug).

BackWPUp works with compression after talking to my hosting provider, a .htaccess configuration change switched me to a newer PHP.