Php script runs differently when triggered remotely

Greetings,

I have a PHP script that is triggered by a .forward file when incoming
email arrives. When triggered, the script retrieves the email using
the php imap functions, processes the email, and then deletes it and
empties the inbox before exiting. This setup worked fine whether the
script was triggered by an incoming email or manually via shell.

Recently, however, I noticed that emails were not being properly
deleted before exit when the script was triggered automatically. But
when I ran the script manually it functioned as expected. I did some
error checking and discovered that certain "points" in the script were
not being reached (seemingly) when the execution was a result of
the .forward. I can't find any errors in the code that would explain
this, however.

Does anyone have any ideas of why execution of a php script might be
different when I run it via shell vs when it is triggered by
a .forward file? Could any changes have been made to my server that
would explain the recent occurrence of this strange difference?

Thanks for any insights you have,
Paul

On May 15, 12:30 am, Paul <paul.margul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I have a PHP script that is triggered by a .forward file when incoming
> email arrives. When triggered, the script retrieves the email using
> the php imap functions, processes the email, and then deletes it and
> empties the inbox before exiting. This setup worked fine whether the
> script was triggered by an incoming email or manually via shell.
>
> Recently, however, I noticed that emails were not being properly
> deleted before exit when the script was triggered automatically. But
> when I ran the script manually it functioned as expected. I did some
> error checking and discovered that certain "points" in the script were
> not being reached (seemingly) when the execution was a result of
> the .forward. I can't find any errors in the code that would explain
> this, however.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas of why execution of a php script might be
> different when I run it via shell vs when it is triggered by
> a .forward file? Could any changes have been made to my server that
> would explain the recent occurrence of this strange difference?
>
> Thanks for any insights you have,
> Paul

It is possible that in one case the script is run through CGI/CLI and
the other time it is run as a server module. Things that could be
different between the two ways the script is run include file
permissions, PHP version, installed PHP extensions, PHP.ini in use,
and some other things.

-Mike PII