PHP has an inherent timeout limit on run time. The export naturally needs a lot of time to pull all the data out of the database.
Look into increasing the max_execution_time setting on your PHP installation.
Thanks. That would be the .htaccess?
Depends on your host. There’s no way for me to tell you how to change that value.
I’ve got ~2500 posts. Below are lines from my php.ini file. What would be reasonable settings to change these to?
max_execution_time = 30 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 60 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 32M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (32MB)
===
I raised these to
max_execution_time = 300 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 600 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 96M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (32MB)
and am still getting the 0-byte xml file.
I then raised these (per BlueHost tech support) to
max_execution_time = 1000 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 1000 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 1000M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (32MB)
and am still getting the 0-byte xml file.
Even tried with a single author who had fewer than 40 posts and still getting 0-byte file.
The php.ini file is not recursive and will likely not be affecting your settings in directories deeper down. Setting the mode to PHP5 (Single php.ini) through the PHP Config icon in the cPanel may help. You can also do the following which should most definitely work for you.
Have bluehost enable shell access for you, then login through ssh and run the following:
mysqldump -u dbprefix_username -p dbprefix_database > dbbackup.sql
Replace dbprefix_username with the actual username for your database and replace dbprefix_database with your actual database name. Keep your wp-config.php file open in another window so you can enter the database password when it prompts you for it.
Using this method will not run into any timeout problems.
Repair and optimize your databases before doing the export just in case some corruption is interfering with it:
http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/index.php/kb/article/000496
I am having this problem too. I was hoping that moving to 2.9.1 would fix it, but it did not. What’s weird is after I updated my testing subdomain (a duplicate of my main site), XML export works on that installation.
