Set database connection timeout in CodeIgniter 3

Question

We are working with 2 databases, our local database and an external database. But now our external database is down (we're still under development so it's good we came across this issue) and it now tries to connect to the external database for 30 seconds, how can I change the connection timeout of the Database to something like 1 - 2 seconds? I am using Codeigniter with the PDO drivers on my databases. Is there anyone with a clean solution for this problem?

Answer 1

It is not a documented feature, but you can do this from the database config file (application/config/database.php) by adding options setting e.g.:

$db['default']['options'] = array(PDO::ATTR_TIMEOUT => 5);

The other settings which use the same internal mechanism (e.g. PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND set with $db['default']['stricton'] and PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_COMPRESS set with $db['default']['compress']) are not affected by this.

If you want to dig deeper or check which options are set, you can log $this->options in db_connect function in system/database/drivers/pdo/pdo_driver.php and also check database/drivers/pdo/subdrivers/pdo_mysql_driver.php.