You need to contact your host about the latter part mentioned in the message: “lift any CPU usage limitations from your account”.
Despite what people typically think, the PHP time limit (max_execution_time) is not the only time limit. In fact, it is the one time limit we CAN lift at runtime, and we even have an option for it. There are other time limits such as the timeout of the web server waiting for PHP to respond, the timeout of the web server before it finishes serving a request, and the Operating System-level CPU time limit (ulimit -t). The lowest of these limits can cause a timeout.
If the server has any of these limits below 5 seconds a backup is absolutely impractical; a default, empty Joomla installation would take over half an hour to back up when on a properly configured servers with these limited set to over 10 seconds the entire backup typically takes under 10 seconds – that's two orders of magnitude slower, which is why I am saying it is impractical.
Best contact your host about it. If they tell you that they do not have any such limits just go into the Configuration page of Akeeba Backup, and set the following:
- Minimum execution time: 0 seconds
- Maximum execution time: 5 seconds
- Execution time bias: 75%
Try taking a backup. If it fails, ZIP and attach the log file and we'll tell you if your host told you the truth, and what you might need to do next.
Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Lead Developer and Director
🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!
