why does the ini_set('memory_limit') doesn't work?

Question

I am doing a file resizer feature, and when I use very high resolution images, I get this fatal error:

PHP Fatal error:  Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to
 allocate 8884 bytes) in /path/resizer.php on line 35

(resizer.php is the resizer class) Then, when I use ini_set('memory_limit', '64MB');

.. in front of the whole block: if (isset($_FILES....)) ... And i get this fatal error:

 PHP Fatal error:  Allowed memory size of 262144 bytes exhausted (tried to 
allocate 8884 bytes) in path/resizerenter code here.php on line 35

Please note that the allocated memory has decreased while I requested an increase. Please let me know if you know what is wrong. Thanks a lot

Probably related: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1386815/increase-php-memory-limit-apache-drupal6 — Pierre-Olivier, Mar 29 '12 at 17:02
If you are on any environment you did not personally set up, you may not have the permissions to override php.ini. Also, you may not have any idea how much memory is in the system for you to make such a change. — , Mar 29 '12 at 17:05

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 04 '13 at 21:04

3

check the php.ini setting: memory_limit

Maybe is already more than 64M. In case you can

   ini_set('memory_limit', '128M'); or 256...

Operations with big images can happen to use huge memory!

edited Mar 04 '13 at 21:04

Caspar Harmer

answered Mar 29 '12 at 17:01

ab_dev86

Hi thanks for your response. I realized, it it set to 32MB! I have a question, is RAM we are talking about? Thanks a lot – alexx0186 Mar 29 '12 at 17:10
Yes this is RAM. ini_set('memory_limit', '128MB') tells php engine that a single execution can use maximum 128MB of ram. This guarantees that a script happens to use to much memory causing problems to system's performance. – ab_dev86 Mar 29 '12 at 19:54

1 Answers1