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bogorman

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Timeout when saving permissions in Drupal

Have been working on a test version of a drupal site for some time now.
Suddenly I find I cannot save permissions. When I click on the Save Permissions button on the Permissions page after a long delayI get a timeout error.
Can anyone suggest a reason?  It has never happened before.
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nanharbison
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Have you added any new modules or themes shortly before this happened?
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bogorman

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No, I haven't.  I did however have problems with CKeditor and CKFinder.    CKFinder worked previously but I suddently found the Browse Server button disappeared. After deleting the CKEditor folder (containing CKFinder) and uploading my last backup I got it to work.
I think the Save Permissions problem occurred about this time but I have not installed any new modules or themes for some time.
I did read that it could be a memory problem and I should try increasing the value in ini_set("memory_limit", "128M"); in settings.php, though it is I think fairly high at present at 128M.
Would value your further comments and suggestions.
Brian
Have tried increasing the memory limit setting in my settings.php file from 128M to:

ini_set("memory_limit", "256M");

It seems to have done the trick and the page saves quickly now. However would value you advice on whether it is ok to increase to this figure.   The site is on a Windows server (IIS) - don't know whether that is relevant.

That should be fine, especially because you were able to increase it. On shared hosting, you might not have been allowed to have that much. You must be onDrupal 7? It needs a minimum of 128, and contributed modules need more.
When I tried saving the permissions again I found that the old problem had returned. Although the page saved previously, if I now click on Save Permissions without making any changes to the page it still times out with "the server at .......... is taking too long to respond"
However, I then tried increasing max_execution_time to 30 and the save worked.   In case this is an intermittent problem, will continue to try it.
Have you done any updates and then have not run the database update script that went with the update?
Yes I usually run update.php.  It is POSSIBLE that I neglected to do this on one occasion but I don't think so.
Have you tried ways of speeding up the site, like using the Boost module?
Thanks for the suggestion.  Will take me a while to install and adjust all the settings.
Will come back to you as soon as I have (hopefully!) got it working
Have installed Boost and I get no errors.

If I'm logged in as admin and I then logout I am not conscious of a dramatic increase in speed - perhaps I'm expecting too much!

Would you mind looking at the site? -

http://209.200.96.22/acquiadrupal/

I suppose it won't help very much as you do not know what it was like before.  There is certainly a large amount of very clear documentation, so I will continue to study it and get back to you.
I think there is an improvement in speed but not all that much.
I cannot set Optimize CSS as this seems to redefine the custom css file. They do warn you that "this setting can interfere with theme development.....".  I am not quite sure what this means as I am no longer altering the theme I use. Presumably I could try this when the site is ready.
I wonder if there are any other settings I can tweak?  If there is anyway of emailing you the admin password you can look at the settings.
Check this out -http://www.archive.org/details/MakeDrupalRunFast-IncreasePageLoadSpeed
although I am not sure how applies to D7.
I went to a talk like this at the Boston Drupal group, and can't find my notes on it.
Thanks for the link. Have looked at it and run the videos.
As far as I can see I have installed boost correctly. I am waiting for the hoisters to tell me if gzip is installed on the site but apart from that there is not much else I can do.
Most of the pages just consist of one image and text plus the "banner" image which is present on all pages. Am wonder if that could be slowing things down but boost should have coped with that as it creates html pages which are used in place of the normal drupal "pages" (?).

Can you make any other suggestions. Would really like to get it working correctly.
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nanharbison
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Here are my settings:


PERFORMANCE:

Performance Tab:

Minimum Cache Lifetime: None
Gzip page: Enabled (Gzip is not installed on the server – should I disable this?)
Block Cache: Enabled
Optimize CSS files: Disabled.  Have had to do this as Boost appears to recreate my Theme's CSS file but it doesn't include the banner image in the css:
      My CSS:    #header-inner
        {
            height: 133px;
            background-image:url('Infant Stars in Nearby Galaxy with wavy logo2.jpg');
           }
      Boost's CSS:header-inner
        {
            height: 133px;
           }



Boost Settings tab:

Static Page Cache:  Enabled
Gzip page: Enabled
Boost – HTML – Default max cache lifetime: 12 hours
Boost – XML – Default max cache lifetime: 1 hour
Boost -  JSON Default max cache lifetime : 1 hour

(the buttons here show: Boost cached data 143 pages
                     Clear boost expired data: 61 pages)
Boost cacheability settings:
Cache pages that contan URL Variables: Selected
Cache html documents/pages: Selected
Cache .xml and /feed: Not Selected
Cache ajax/json: Selected
Cache .css: Selected
Cache .js: Selected
Only allow ASCII characters in path: Selected
Do not cache if php error on page: Not Selected
Do not cache if a message is on the page: Selected
Do not cache if there is an alias for this URL: Not Selected
Statically cache specific pages:
Cache every page except the listed pages: Selected (no pages listed)
Clear expired pages on cron runs:  Enabled
Check database timestamps......Not Selected
Clear all empty folder from cache: not Selected
Clear the fronpage cache when prompted: Selected
Clear all cached pages referenced via CCK...... Selected
Clear all cached terms....... Selected
Clear all cached pages in a menu on an insert/update/delete operation:
Disabled
Clear all cached views pages associated with a node on update/delete....Selected
Cleared all cched views pages associated with a note on insert..........Selected
Clear Boosts cache.... Not Selected
Flush all sites caches in this database (not Selected)
Expire content in DB..... Not Selected
Ignore cache flushing:
      only Ignore Clear Entire Cache..... Selected
Cache Dir:  cache
Do not store the cache file path in the database   Selected
Pre-process function: blank
Aggressive setting of the boost cookie:   Selecgted
Asynchronous Operation: output HTML.........    Selected
Overwrite the cached file.........Not Selected
Turn off clean urls for logged in users     Not Selected
Aggressive Gzip...........Selected
Disable warning about reaching the ext3 fie system......Selected

Boost crawler:
Enable the cron crawler:    Not selected
Not not flush:    Not selected
Preemptive Cache HTML    Selected
Preemptive Cache XML      Selected
Preemptive Cache AJAX/JSON..........Selected
Crawl all URL's...... Not Selected
Number of URLs to grab.... 10000
Crawler Throttle   0
Crawler Batch Size     10
Number of Threads 2
Servers URL or Name:
%{SERVER_NAME}    Seleced
%{Document_root}     Selected
Etag Settings
Do nothing:    Selected
Boost tags
Inject boost tags......Selected
Follow RFC2616.....Selected
Ignore .htaccess warning........Not selected
On the Clear Boost's Database and File Cache button there are 371 Database Records and 352 Files shown.


Thanks for trying to help.  Unfortunately I find Boost really makes not difference on my site but you have spent so much time on it I think it is fair to assign the points.
I am wondering if it is something to do with the server I am using - Windows IIS7.
Am thinking of trying a hosted who has LINUX servers. Is this better for drupal?