How to gracefully handle files that exceed PHP's `post_max_size`?

From the documentation :

If the size of post data is greater than post_max_size, the $_POST and $_FILES superglobals are empty. This can be tracked in various ways, e.g. by passing the $_GET variable to the script processing the data, i.e. <form action="edit.php?processed=1">, and then checking if $_GET['processed'] is set.

So unfortunately, it doesn't look like PHP sends an error. And since it sends am empty $_POST array, that is why your script is going back to the blank form - it doesn't think it is a POST. (Quite a poor design decision IMHO)

This commenter also has an interesting idea.

It seems that a more elegant way is comparison between post_max_size and $_SERVER['CONTENT_LENGTH']. Please note that the latter includes not only size of uploaded file plus post data but also multipart sequences.

there is a way to catch / handle files exceeding max post size, this is my preferred on, as it tells the end user what has happened and who is at fault ;)

if (empty($_FILES) && empty($_POST) &&
        isset($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']) &&
        strtolower($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']) == 'post') {
    //catch file overload error...
    $postMax = ini_get('post_max_size'); //grab the size limits...
    echo "<p style=\"color: #F00;\">\nPlease note files larger than {$postMax} will result in this error!<br>Please be advised this is not a limitation in the CMS, This is a limitation of the hosting server.<br>For various reasons they limit the max size of uploaded files, if you have access to the php ini file you can fix this by changing the post_max_size setting.<br> If you can't then please ask your host to increase the size limits, or use the FTP uploaded form</p>"; // echo out error and solutions...
    addForm(); //bounce back to the just filled out form.
}
else {
    // continue on with processing of the page...
}

We got the problem for SOAP requests where a check for emptiness of $_POST and $_FILES doesn't work, because they are also empty on valid requests.

Therefore we implemented a check, comparing CONTENT_LENGTH and post_max_size. The thrown Exception is later on transformed into a XML-SOAP-FAULT by our registered exception handler.

private function checkPostSizeExceeded() {
    $maxPostSize = $this->iniGetBytes('post_max_size');

    if ($_SERVER['CONTENT_LENGTH'] > $maxPostSize) {
        throw new Exception(
            sprintf('Max post size exceeded! Got %s bytes, but limit is %s bytes.',
                $_SERVER['CONTENT_LENGTH'],
                $maxPostSize
            )
        );
    }
}

private function iniGetBytes($val)
{
    $val = trim(ini_get($val));
    if ($val != '') {
        $last = strtolower(
            $val{strlen($val) - 1}
        );
    } else {
        $last = '';
    }
    switch ($last) {
        // The 'G' modifier is available since PHP 5.1.0
        case 'g':
            $val *= 1024;
            // fall through
        case 'm':
            $val *= 1024;
            // fall through
        case 'k':
            $val *= 1024;
            // fall through
    }

    return $val;
}