[imp] Very large text message and failure to render view.

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Daxbert <daxbert_news at dweebsoft.com>:

> I'm running imp and I am having a problem with a large (4MB) text message.
> Note: this isn't an attachment, it's the actual body of the message.

This is a "known issue" in that large messages take a long time to render
and exceeds the php max_execution time setting or the web server connection
timeout.  Solution is to raise these, or to not read large messages via
IMP.  I've done both (raised them to what I think is reasonable, and then
tell people that large ones just won't render...).

> The message is listed properly (to/from/subject/size) in the inbox view, but
> when I click on the link to view the message,  the page isn't rendered. 
> Under
> IE I receive a "Page Cannot be displayed" error, while under Mozilla I get
> 'The
> Document contains no data'.  IMP works fine with smaller messages.

It is timing out before it can be rendered.

> I've run a few tests and I've found that messages larger than about 512KB
> seem
> to fail in the manner described.

Increase your php execution timeout, and/or your web server connection
timeouts.  But realize that there is a limit to this -- who wants to wait
10 minutes to see the multi-megabyte email?  At some point, it is better
to abort than to make the user wait that long.

> I've even used lynx in order to "browse"
> locally to remove any potential network issues.  Lynx (locally) reports
> within 5
> seconds "Unexpected network read error, connection aborted" when the message
> is
> 1MB.  However, 512KB works fine.

That is strange that it is that fast.  Makes me think that in addition to
what I said above you have a memory limit issue.  What are your php memory
limit settings?
 
> Is there an option to enable direct download of the message from the list
> view
> instead of trying to render the message in the "normal" manner.

No, but that would be really interesting/useful.  A check in IMP that says:
if the message is over (some configurable size) limit, then instead of
rendering it, simply return a page saying it is too large to display and
offering a link to download the message.  Very nice idea.

> Or is their another solution to my problem?

See above.  But realistically, 4MB files are just too big to do with
IMP in my experience.  Depending on machine resources, and how long
your users will wait for it to render, the reasonable limits are somewhere
between 400K and 1 MB.

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> --daxbert

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Why get even? Get odd!