PHP Manual . ... If the remote client disconnects the ABORTED state flag is turned on. ... With a shutdown function, when the remote user hits his STOP button, the next time your script tries to output something PHP will detect that the connection has been aborted and the shutdown function is called. This shutdown function will also get called at the end of your script terminating normally, so to do something different in case of a client diconnect you can use the connection_aborted() function. ...