PHP script stops running arbitrarily with no errors

Question

I have a PHP script that seemed to stop running after about 20 minutes.

To try to figure out why, I made a very simple script to see how long it would run without any complex code to confuse me.

I found that the same thing was happening with this simple infinite loop. At some point between 15 and 25 minutes of running, it stops without any message or error. The browser says "Done".

I've been over every single possible thing I could think of:

set_time_limit ( session.gc_maxlifetime in the php.ini)
memory_limit
max_execution_time

The point that the script is stopped is not consistent. Sometimes it will stop at 15 minutes, sometimes 22 minutes.

Please, any help would be greatly appreciated.

It is hosted on a 1and1 server. I contacted them and they don't provide support for bugs caused by developers.

Answer 1

At some point your browser times out and stops loading the page. If you want to test, open up the command line and run the code in there. The script should run indefinitely.

Answer 2

Have you considered just running the script from the command line, eg:

php script.php

and have the script flush out a message every so often that its still running:

<?php

while (true) {
  doWork();
  echo "still alive...";
  flush();
}