FCGI: ap_pass_brigade failed in handle_request function

Hi.
I'm running a VServer with Debian, Apache 2.2.9, FCGI and SuExec. I'm hosting a website with a pay-for-download service which uses a PHP to deliver files. The code for that is basically (with some checking for valid file/token/etc before):

PHP:

header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: private",false);
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"".basename($filepath)."\";" );
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($filepath));
ob_clean();
flush();
readfile($filepath);


This works perfectly fine on one of my computers (Windows 7 x64) and all installed browsers (Chrome/Firefox/Internet Explorer/Opera) but it fails on a different computer (Windows XP SP3) as soon as I try to download bigger files (100-200 MB). The download just stops before 100% are downloaded. The Apache error.log shows entries like

Code:

[Thu Oct 21 02:15:40 2010] [warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: read data from fastcgi server error
[Thu Oct 21 02:15:40 2010] [warn] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: ap_pass_brigade failed in handle_request function

So it is obviously related to FCGI. My first idea was to mess around with the fcgid parameters, but that didn't make any changes, so I reset to my previous fcgid settings:

PHP:

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
  AddHandler    fcgid-script .php
  AddType       application/xhttpd-php .php
  IPCConnectTimeout 20
</IfModule>


The next thing I tested was to increase the PHP memory limit from 20MB to 256MB, but this didn't change anything either.

Any ideas? I really don't understand why this works on one computer but doesn't work on others. Help is much appreciated!

Thanks
tree8

PS: There are more machines where it doesn't work (and just stops before the 100%), so this cannot be a local problem.

 

Do you use an FCGI wrapper script? If so, can you post it here?

 

Yes:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
PHPRC="/home/******/cnf/"
export PHPRC
export TMPDIR=/home/******/tmp
exec /usr/bin/php5-cgi

username replaced by ******

 

Can you try to add something like this to the wrapper script?

Code:

export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=8

 

Tested -> it works now! Thanks a lot.

Memory footprint of the server has slightly increased, but nothing to worry.
Only thing I don't understand: Why did this problem occur only on some computers but not on others?

Thx
tree8

 

Are all computers identical in hardware (e.g. memory)?

 

Of course not, but I wanted to know how that influences the server's behavior in that case.

 

I think that RAM might be a factor.