500 internal server error while downloading images using PHP

Question

I'm getting the 500 Internal Server Error by running the following script, even though I'm downloading and inserting to the DB 80 images at a time:

<?php

function download_remote_file($file_url, $save_to)
{
    $content = file_get_contents($file_url);
    file_put_contents($save_to, $content);
}

function microtime_float()
{
    list($usec, $sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
    return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);
}

require_once('sqlconnect.php');
$time_start = microtime_float();
$query="SELECT * FROM GAMES WHERE GAME_IMAGE LIKE '%cache%' LIMIT 0, 80";

$result = mysql_query($query);

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
  $game_img = $row['GAME_IMAGE'];
  $gameDB_id = $row['GAME_DBID'];
  chdir($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/img/game/');
  if(!file_exists($gameDB_id))
  {
  mkdir($gameDB_id);
  }
  if(strlen(strstr($game_img,'boxart')) == 0)
  {
      $game_img = $game_img.'/boxart/original/front/'.$gameDB_id.'-1.jpg'; 
  }

  $game_img_path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/img/game/'.$gameDB_id;
  chmod($game_img_path,0777);
  $game_img_name = $gameDB_id.'.jpg';
 $gamefullpath = 'http://www.someSite.nl/img/game/'.$gameDB_id.'/'.$game_img_name;
 if(!file_exists($game_img_path.'/'.$game_img_name ))
 {
  download_remote_file($game_img, realpath($game_img_path) . '/'.$game_img_name); 

  $bytes = filesize($game_img_path.'/'.$game_img_name );
  $KB = round($bytes / 1024, 2);
  if($KB > 50)
  {
      echo "The ID number ".$gameDB_id. " has an invalid image URL, look it up on gamedb.net! <br />";
  }
 }
   $query2 = "UPDATE GAMES SET GAME_IMAGE = '$gamefullpath' WHERE GAME_DBID = '$gameDB_id' AND GAME_DBID";
  $result2 = mysql_query($query2) or die("error!");
  //$nr_of_files = count($game_img_path);
  //echo "Nr of images downloaded:".$nr_of_files;
}

mysql_close($con);
$time_end = microtime_float();
$time = $time_end - $time_start;

echo "Downloading and adding to the database took ".$time." seconds <br />";
$message = "The specified images have been downloaded!";
echo $message;
?>

Am I doing something wrong which forces the server to stop? Or in case it's not efficient what can I do to make it so. Or maybe the problem is some server configuration.

Server:

Apache/2.2.9 (Debian) DAV/2 SVN/1.5.1 PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny13 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ruby/1.2.6 Ruby/1.8.7(2008-08-11) mod_ssl/2.2.9 OpenSSL/0.9.8g Server

Your help is much appreciated.

UPDATE (log):

‎[Wed Jan 11 08:58:39 2012] [notice] mod_fcgid: call /home/someSiteName/public_html/admin/download_game_img.php with wrapper /home/someSiteName/fcgi-bin/php5.fcgi

UPDATE (time):

about 100 seconds.

UPDATE (die):

I put a die after this line and the error seems to be here:

download_remote_file($game_img, realpath($game_img_path) . '/'.$game_img_name);

Answer 1

this is because the default php script's maximum execution time is 30 seconds and your page is taking more than 100 seconds.

you can increase the maximum execution time for your php scripts using .htaccess file

add the following lines to your .htaccess file

php_value max_execution_time 8000
php_value max_input_time 4000

you can also set the limit in php.ini file

max_execution_time 8000
max_input_time 4000