By default, the maximum execution time for PHP scripts is set to 30 seconds. If a script takes more than 30 seconds, PHP stops the script and returns an error.

You can change the script run time by changing the max_execution_time directive in the php.ini file.

When a script is called, set_time_limit function restarts the timeout counter from zero. It means, if default timer is set to 30 sec, and 20 sec is specified in function set_time_limit(), then script will run for 45 seconds. If 0sec is specified in this function, script takes unlimited time.