Adjusting your php.ini settings for importing .po files

Gettext portable object files sometimes are big enough to require you to adjust the settings of you php.ini at least to be able to import the translated strings into your Drupal installation.

For example, the es.po (Spanish localization) for Drupal 4.6.4 is a 400K+ text file containing 1800+ translated strings. You might very well need to adjust the relevant php.ini settings for this file to get imported.

PHP defaults to this values:

; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_execution_time = 30

; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
max_input_time = 60

; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)
memory_limit = 8M

You'll more likely have to adjust the memory_limit to 16M (your mileage may vary) to have the import process complete.

If you're getting a blank page with no indication that the import process has been completed (or has failed) you're most probably having trouble with PHP's defaults. Make sure by checking the messages in your webserver's error log.

If it's the upload what is taking too much time go adjust max_input_time to a higher value. If it's the time the script is taking to complete the process what's taking too much time you'll have to adjust max_execution_time.

There should be no need to leave this values that way once you've imported a big .po file. If you're confident the new settings won't hurt your webserver's performance or security just leave them that way. Otherwise return them to the previous settings (even when it's highly iikely that you'll need to readjust them whenever you perform an upgrade or reinstall)