Limit on custom fields

[rainman2000]

Hi All,

We are migrating away from VM 1.1.9 to VM 2. One of the great things about VM 2 is the stockable custom fields. We have one item with 107 child items which means it has 107 custom fields. Each child item allows the customer to choose 3 options (length, color, cap style). On our current site, we must separate this into 3 categories which gives the customer 3 different cap styles to choose from. The customers find it very confusing and it's also difficult for us to manage, because we must manage 3 items instead of 1. So we are excited about the possibility of presenting 1 image and allowing the customer to choose all their options. Also, on this particular item we have another custom field that uses image types, so the customer can choose between about 15 different styles of the product.

However, when we initially attempted to add all 107 child products to the parent it would not save. Our developer informed us that it was a memory issue and he added max_input_vars = 5000 to our php.ini. This allowed us to save and edit the item. However, now the when we attempt to edit the item from the backend it simply goes to a white screen. My developer says it's still a memory issue and perhaps a Virtuemart limit on the custom fields. I'm trying to understand what is the maximum number of custom fields on a single product that Virtuemart can safely support, and of course how to correct the white screen issue.

Our website runs on a dedicated Linux server with 8GB RAM.

Thx!