PHP timing out with session problem

[KenDavies]

For a while now I've been getting intermittent problems with PHP either slowing down or very occasionally timing out for no apparent reason. For the first time it's happened a number of times today and there is an error message in the logs:

 

PHP Fatal error:  Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in functions.php on line 4, referer:search.php

 

The odd thing is that line 4 of functions.php only contains: $sess = session_id();

 

I've never had a problem with PHP that digging around in this forum hasn't solved but this one has me stumped.

 

Anyone got any ideas?

 

TIA