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Your LimeSurvey version: 6.1.4+230620
Own server or LimeSurvey hosting: Own
Survey theme/template: Fruity
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Hi,
I have noticed that in my last survey the participants always receive session timeout errors if more than 20-30 people are trying to fill out the survey. I have tried to update my limesurvey instance to the newest version and I also tried creating a new one under a slightly different subdomain. Unfortunately, neither way has worked. Is there anything else I could try?

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Hmmm, do you really think that anyone will read through this "text salad"? Very, very difficult to read.

My guess would be that it has to do with your server and your hosting configuration. I don't think it will change with a new subdomain (why should it?) or with an update.

Where are the sessions stored? How much space does Limesurvey have to store sessions? Session files in Limesurvey can be quite big, depending on your survey.

Are you running this on a shared hosting environment, a VPS or a dedicated server? What are the specifics of the server?

20-30 concurrent respondents can be heavy for weaker hosting packages.

Hi, thank you very much for your response and sorry for that wall of text. I formatted it nicely in the preview but I don't know why it did not keep the tables. Anyway, I messaged my hosting provider and it looks like it was indeed a bad configuration of my hosting package!

Yeah, shared hosting is usually not ideal for hosting Limesurvey if you have some traffic. And 20-30 concurrent respondents is not a small survey. Even if you send out 1000 invitations, 20-30 concurrent respondents is quite a lot in my opinion.

Adjust the session timeout setting in your PHP configuration to a longer duration. Locate the session.gc_maxlifetime directive in your php.ini file and set a higher value, such as 3600 (1 hour) or more, depending on your requirements.

Hello sangitasharma,
would you please tell me which are the drawbacks of having a higher value for gc_maxlifetime?

The higher the maximum lifetime of a session file is, the longer it is stored on your server. This means that you need to reserve more space on your server for session files. The longer your survey, the bigger usually the session files. So if you have a lot of people starting your survey, but not ending it, the longer the max lifetime is, the longer the session files stays and occupies space. If you have enough space on the server and have allocated enough of this space for your session files, then a longer max life time isn't really an issue. Now if you have a lot of long surveys (thus big sessions files that stay long on your server) and a lot of respondents at the same time, it can require quite a bit of space allocated to sessions.

holch post=245113 userid=5154The higher the maximum lifetime of a session file is, the longer it is stored on your server. This means that you need to reserve more space on your server for session files. The longer your survey, the bigger usually the session files. So if you have a lot of people starting your survey, but not ending it, the longer the max lifetime is, the longer the session files stays and occupies space. If you have enough space on the server and have allocated enough of this space for your session files, then a longer max life time isn't really an issue. Now if you have a lot of long surveys (thus big sessions files that stay long on your server) and a lot of respondents at the same time, it can require quite a bit of space allocated to sessions.

Thank you but what happens if the sessions are set to DB? Are there big records that are written and deleted when expired?

ritapas wrote:

Thank you but what happens if the sessions are set to DB? Are there big records that are written and deleted when expired?

If session is set on DB : session.gc_maxlifetime is not used.

About session in DB : the issue is another request to DB. Sometimes the speed between the database and the server can be slower than reading and writing to disk.

This puzzles me a lot! If session.gc_maxlifetime is not used, where may I set the maximum timespan if session is in DB?

sorry, now I see it's in the global settings when you switch to DB. So, what would be the drawback for a longer session time when session is on db?
Thanks a lot

ritapas post=245120 userid=47181This puzzles me a lot! If session.gc_maxlifetime is not used, where may I set the maximum timespan if session is in DB?