Unable to download or access huge backup file in Plesk interface: 504 Gateway Time-out

Benjamin Wessel

Updated April 27, 2021 16:01

Plesk for Linux kb: technical ABT: Group B

Applicable to:

Unable to download or access huge backup file (more than 20 GB or with multiple incremental backups) in Tools & Settings > Backup Manager > Backup > Download, one of the following errors is shown:

504 Gateway Time-out

This operation is taking too long. Check the results in a few minutes.

The following error can be found in /var/log/plesk/sw-cp-server/error_log:

[error] 2146#0: *42 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 203.0.113.2, server: , request: "POST /admin/backup/download-dump?_randomId=987887 HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/sw-engine.sock", host: "example.com:8443", referrer: "https://example.com:8443/admin/backup/local-repository?_randomId=541875"
The following timeout limits are set on the server:

# grep "timeout" /etc/sw-cp-server/config | grep "fastcgi"
fastcgi_read_timeout 600;
fastcgi_send_timeout 600;
# grep "max_execution_time" /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/php.ini
max_execution_time = 600

Insufficient timeout limits set for Plesk.

Connect to the server via SSH
Open /etc/sw-cp-server/config file using a text editor
Adjust timeout limits for FastCGI to the following:

fastcgi_read_timeout 1200
fastcgi_send_timeout 1200
Open /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/php.ini file using a text editor
Adjust timeout limits for PHP:

max_execution_time = 1200
Restart sw-engine and sw-cp-server services:

# service sw-engine restart
# service sw-cp-server restart

If the issue still persists increase timeout limits even greater.

Alternatively, it is possible to download the backup directly from the server via CLI bypassing Plesk interface.