Some larger OpenStax books must be imported in pieces or process times out

[josieg]

Description

When importing Anatomy and Physiology, it gets past the first import, but in the second import (when the parts/chapters you select are actually brought in) then the import process times out with only a portion of the content successfully imported. I have to import the book piece by piece to get a complete copy. Previous issues where this has been discussed: #50 and #52 . But in issue 50, you only highlight one book as being too big to import, one that is around 2GB. But the A&P book is 408MB. I was able to import Intro To Sociology 2e in one go, but it's 104MB.

Steps to reproduce the problem

1. Create a new book in Pressbooks.
2. Import Anatomy and Physiology via the ZIP URL and the OpenStax import plugin.
3. Select all chapters and parts for import. Click import.
4. After a while, the page will time out saying "This page isn't working."
5. Navigate back using the "Back" arrow. This will take you back to the page where you select parts and chapter to import.
6. Open the Organize page in a new tab. See that only the first three and a half parts imported (out of over 25 parts). (The second time I tried this I only got one 1.2 parts)
7. Navigate back to the tab where you can select what parts/chapters you want to import.
8. Unselect the parts/chapters that imported successfully. Click Import.
9. Return to step 4 and repeat until all parts and chapters have been imported.

I know the timing-out problem is not a new one and not one with a sustainable fix, but is there a way to make the process of importing a book in smaller pieces easier to manage and more straightforward? If we move forward with using the API, then spending time on this is probably not worth it. But if we don't (or if it's something far in the future) we need a better way to manage importing OpenStax books.

Here are some thoughts I have about this. Overall, if this system is what we are stuck with, and we want other people outside of high-level Pressbooks Users to be able to use it, and we're willing to invest in it, then I'd like for there to be mechanisms built in to make it easy to import large OpenStax books in smaller batches:

• The "This page is not working" notice needs to change so that people don't assume that none of their content made it in and try to do it all again and so that people realize that the problem is trying to do too much at once.
• In step 3 described above, it is possible to avoid the time-out notice if you only select a few parts to import at one time. However, if you do it this way, when you're ready to import the next section you have to return to step 2 and reimport the OpenStax file and select the next set of chapters and parts. This is annoying and adds a lot of extra time (especially if importing the book that first time is slow). It would be nice if there was a way to import a few parts and chapters and then return to the page where you can select the next set of chapters/parts without having to import the book again.
• It would be nice if there was a notice on the step 3 page that says whether the import will be successful based on how many parts and chapters are selected for import. Or maybe a notice that pops up once they click import saying that they are trying to do too much at one time and ask if they'd like to continue or select fewer parts/chapters? That may be unrealistic, but just a thought.