List import too slow

I am trying to import a list of 10,000 rows, and and it will not complete, it runs for several hours, the icon just spins and spins, but nothing ever seems to happen, I might get an error I might not.
If I check the database then it has imported some of them, but so far the farthest I have got is 5200.

Why is it so slow ? it should not take much time at all to import a mere 10,000 records.

Hi.

What version are you using? Also, how many contacts are already in the database?

I have seen the import ‘freeze’ on records that have invisible characters in it. You won’t be able to see them unless you use a fancy text editor (textmate, vi, ultra edit, etc.)

If the characters do exist, you need to remove them and the import will complete.

I am using the latest version.
I started with zero contacts, obviously this number increases as the import runs.
There is not any invisible characters causing it to freeze, the problem is that it is very very slow.
If I check the database then can see them being imported, just very slowly, but because it is so slow, the session will timeout, so presumably will php.

I had to break the file down into smaller chunks of 2000 records to get it imported.

Why is it so slow ?

if it works on smaller lists, then i’d suggest you look at the php settings, search for maximum upload size, and increase the memory for php. there are also some settings in phpList that the import function uses. You could search for those and increase them, too.

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I think you are missing the issue, it is slow to import each record regardless of the size of the list, the only reason it works with small lists is because they import before it times out. If you refer to my previous post I didi state that I am watching the record appear in the DB, so I can see exactly how slowly it is doing the import.
The PHP settings are fine, we run numerous other PHP apps on this server that do a lot more than PHPlist, it allows 20mb file uploads, massive timeout values, 512MB assigned to PHP etc.

I can’t replicate this, not sure what the cause could be.