Sawmill Documentation
Technical ManualFAQUser GuideWWW Sawmill

FAQ: IIS CGI Timeout


When I run Sawmill as a CGI program under IIS, I get an error message "CGI Timeout: The specified CGI application exceeded the allowed time for processing. The server has deleted the process." What can I do about that?

Short Answer

Set the IIS CGI timeout to a high value, like 999999.

Long Answer

Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) automatically terminates CGI programs that run for more than five minutes. Unfortunately, Sawmill can easily use that much when building a database, and if IIS terminates it, it may leave the database partly built and unusable. The solution is to reconfigure the IIS server to increase the CGI timeout to a much larger value. Here's how (instructions are for Windows 2000 Server; other Windows variants may be slightly different):

  1. In the Start Menu, go the Settings menu, and choose Control Panels.

  2. Open the Administrative Tools control panel.

  3. Open the Internet Services Manager item.

  4. Right-click on the computer icon in the left panel and choose Properties from the menu that appears.

  5. Click "Edit..." next to "WWW Services".

  6. Click the "Home Directory" tab.

  7. Click the "Profile..." button.

  8. Click the "Process Options" tab.

  9. Enter a large value in the CGI script timeout field, perhaps 999999.