So if you are getting a Timeout when updating phpBB to 3.2.2, it tells you to either increase the maximum time limit or do the update on the CLI.

How to update on the CLI

Of course, this requires that you have access to the CLI.

• On the CLI, go into the install folder of phpBB
• Create a file named config.yml that contains this:

  updater:
      type: db_only

• Make sure the above file does not end with newlines
• Run:

  php ./phpbbcli.php update config.yml

Fixing the update timeout problem

In my case, the CLI update gave this error:

PHP Fatal error:  Call to a member function fetch_array() on resource in [...]/install/update/new/phpbb/db/migration/data/v32x/fix_user_styles.php on line 42

This is a bug in the migration script. The most easy way to fix it, is to go into your config.php and change the $dbms from mysql to mysqli. This is recommended anyway.

If this is not possible for you, open the mentioned file and search for:

$enabled_styles = $result->fetch_array();

And replace this with:

$enabled_styles = $this->db->sql_fetchrowset($result);

Thanks to RMcGirr83 and Marc on this thread.