PHP: maximum execution time when importing .SQL data file

There's a configuration variable within the phpMyAdmin directory that you can find in libraries\config.default.php called $cfg['ExecTimeLimit'] that you can set to whatever maximum execution time you need.

Well, to get rid of this you need to set phpMyadmin variable to either 0 that is unlimited or whichever value in seconds you find suitable for your needs. Or you could always use CLI(command line interface) to not even get such errors(For which you would like to take a look at this link.

Now about the error here, first on the safe side make sure you have set PHP parameters properly so that you can upload large files and can use maximum execution time from that end. If not, go ahead and set below three parameters from php.ini file,

1. max_execution_time=3000000 (Set this as per your req)
2. post_max_size=4096M
3. upload_max_filesize=4096M

Once that's done get back to finding phpMyadmin config file named something like "config.default.php". On XAMPP you will find it under "C:\xampp\phpMyAdmin\libraries" folder. Open the file called config.default.php and set :

$cfg['ExecTimeLimit'] = 0;

Once set, restart your MySQL and Apache and go import your database.

Enjoy... :)

You're trying to import a huge dataset via a web interface.

By default PHP scripts run in the context of a web server have a maximum execution time limit because you don't want a single errant PHP script tying up the entire server and causing a denial of service.

For that reason your import is failing. PHPMyAdmin is a web application and is hitting the limit imposed by PHP.

You could try raising the limit but that limit exists for a good reason so that's not advisable. Running a script that is going to take a very long time to execute in a web server is a very bad idea.

PHPMyAdmin isn't really intended for heavy duty jobs like this, it's meant for day to day housekeeping tasks and troubleshooting.

Your best option is to use the proper tools for the job, such as the mysql commandline tools. Assuming your file is an SQL dump then you can try running the following from the commandline:

mysql -u(your user name here) -p(your password here) -h(your sql server name here) (db name here) < /path/to/your/sql/dump.sql

Or if you aren't comfortable with commandline tools then something like SQLYog (for Windows), Sequel Pro (for Mac), etc may be more suitable for running an import job