Fatal Error: Maximum execution time exceeded

I have an issue where I am getting a “Fatal Error: Maximum execution time exceeded” when I am trying to update/publish an event that has been generated through the public portal page. The event still publishes and updates, but I have to go “back” to the previous page, not to mention it locks up my php build for part of the updating time.

On entries that I have created through the wp-admin/events dashboard, I can update and publish with no problem whatsoever. It is only when I try working with a publicly-entered record.

I have tried increasing the max execution time of my php up to 5 minutes. Unfortunately, with a high execution time setting, my php build then ran out of memory during the update process and failed. I increased the memory up to 1 gig, and it still runs out of memory, so it’s not a true lack of resources, rather something chewing up processing time and memory.

When I would get the max execution timeout (with a low enough max setting that I get this instead of memory exhausted), the error message attached varies depending on what else is going on with the server at the time. I always get an error of a line of a php file (in the wp directory), but the bad line varies as to how fast the machine is processing through the php code (which indicates to me that something is chewing up clock cycles, as normally the server will churn all the files in under a second).

Any advise or help would be greatly appreciated. I did not create the site itself, but maintain the server running WP, and have been requested by the sites owners to investigate on behalf of the web admin company they use.

Thanks
Steve

http://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/