why would a large not upload, when a small does, when it is still within the POST limit?

[lawrence k]

I've a file upload script on my site. I just now used it to upload a
small text document (10k). Everything worked fine.

Then I tried to upload a 5.3 meg Quicktime video.

Didn't work.

I've set the POST limit in php.ini to 8 megs.

What reasons, other than the POST limit, would a large upload fail?

[Erwin Moller]

Re: why would a large not upload, when a small does, when it is still within the POST limit?

lawrence k wrote:
[color=blue]
> I've a file upload script on my site. I just now used it to upload a
> small text document (10k). Everything worked fine.
>
> Then I tried to upload a 5.3 meg Quicktime video.
>
> Didn't work.
>
> I've set the POST limit in php.ini to 8 megs.
>
> What reasons, other than the POST limit, would a large upload fail?[/color]

Hi,

Some possible problems:
1) hidden input parameter in form: MAX_FILE_SIZE
<input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_ SIZE" value="30000" />

This is just a hint to the browser. If you do not use it, then don't worry.
If you do, check the value.

2) upload_max_file size in php.ini
This directive also has influence on max size.

and of course the POST-limit, but you found that one already.

Check this out:

http://nl3.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.upload-max-filesize

It describes the whole process.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

[lawrence k]

Re: why would a large not upload, when a small does, when it is still within the POST limit?


lawrence k wrote:[color=blue]
> I've a file upload script on my site. I just now used it to upload a
> small text document (10k). Everything worked fine.
>
> Then I tried to upload a 5.3 meg Quicktime video.
>
> Didn't work.
>
> I've set the POST limit in php.ini to 8 megs.
>
> What reasons, other than the POST limit, would a large upload fail?[/color]

Wow. Thanks to Steve, john.d.mann@sbc global.net, Geoff Muldoon and
Erwin Moller for all the great replies. So, to summarize, these are the
things I should check:

1.) The binary file gets converted to ASCII, which will be bigger than
the binary, so a 6 meg binary could potentially be bigger than the 8
meg POST limit set in php.ini.

2.) The script time-out limit. My long upload might be taking too
long? I set the time out to 90 seconds in php.ini. Does that really
cut off uploads? That doesn't make sense to me. Lots of people have the
time out set to 30 seconds. For people on dial up modems, there would
be no way to upload even moderate size files, if the time out kills the
upload.

3.) Also, if using PHP on Apache (I am) check that the httpd.conf
settings aren't
lower than your PHP settings.

Thanks. I'll check these in order.