Server Issues

[Fuzz]

I guess it is that time of the year again...

I have been juggling a server issue for the last week. You may have noticed a few gray areas of down time over that period, and I'm sorry. There are well over 30 functional websites on the box now, which is well lower than what our box can handle, but there is a bad script lurking somewhere. I can't seem to isolate it either. It drains the memory from the server and eventually will kill the mysql and php service, therefore, killing any site that uses those (which TFF is one of them).

I have someone from our hosting company checking it out tonight around 7 CST. I am paying him to isolate the culprit, cause I give up. lol. Just wanted to give a small update in case any of you noticed.

Sorry for the trouble!! thanks

[Merlin]

Yeah, that's why I emailed you last week. I was starting to think I was the only one whom noticed, since nobody started a topic about it. I thought it was peculiar that it seemed almost random what time it would go out, but that would explain it. It has become rather bothersome to me, because I was often writing something and it would die out. Luckily I learned long ago to CTRL+A-->CTRL+C every post before I hit submit. ^_^

[LocoColt04]

This morning was actually the first I'd seen anything -- I must have missed all the down spots or something. Odd timing and whatnot. I figured if I came home tonight and it was still down, I'd give you a call, but I see that isn't the case at all.

In any case, good to see it's being handled.

[FF Ace Cid]

Yeah, I noticed the server issues a little bit ago. I haven't had too much trouble though. Actually, when I went to post earlier about this, I experienced some trouble, but I am glad to see that it is already being handled.

[Cain Highwind]

Yeah for the last couple of days I've been getting database errors from doing stuff like closing and moving topics. The action still goes through, thankfully.

EDIT: It just did it for this post (and forced a double post below)

[Fuzz]

I have been playing with the mysql and php settings for the last few days to get the most optimized configuration. I think I have it at a pretty stable setting right now. I reduced the amount of memory that mysqld uses by 75%, so hopefully that will eliminate the 'too many connections' error that some of you may have encountered.

haha, Merlin... I always ctrl + A, ctrl + C before every post... sort of sad we have to do that, but you never know these days.


Cain - Yeah, my inbox got flooded with some database errors from you deleting posts and closing topics... I did a repair on the postindex table, hopefully that fixes it... if you don't mind give it another whirl and let me know if you still get the same error... its good to know that it still works despite the message coming up though.

thanks for your patience guys, I think we're almost out of the dark.
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[T.G. Oskar]

I thought that was because of a firewall change...from my part, at least.

But yeah, I was unable to access the forums or the main site for about 2 weeks ago, and I left the browser running overnight to see if it finished loading. Mostly it was either the banner header and nothing else (while downloading from the goog1eanalytics or from the server itself), or the aforementioned database error often going on. I also noticed, once, that the main site was apparently closed or something, as if the server domain was removed and left open. I even ran a DOM Inspection, to realize the server hadn't loaded completely.

I wish I could do something to help, more than placing my personal issues when trying to load on, but cannot do much more.

One final thing: I've noticed another forum (the Wizards of the Coast message boards) have gotten a bit screwed as well. Might that be a hacker attack to the basic forum services? I need to do a bit of check with other forums (say, Invision), but perhaps it's wider than you may think.

Also, will probably save this message in Notepad in case it gets altered or something. And, I tried to send Cain a message, via e-mail, but it seemed not to reach as it dealt a delivery failure notification.

[Fuzz]

Thanks for sharing the additional information. After a week and half I finally isolated the problem and the server has been running smooth for the last 5 days.

The problem was a very poorly made table in mySQL in some OSCommerce addition on one of my other sites... That is the problem about adding 3rd party scripts to your site, sometimes the developer doesn't thoroughly test everything and a memory leak can reside.

After dropping the table, everything has been MORE than great. As always, I promise to always minimize downtime and errors... so if you do ever see odd problems, I'm usually on it quick. However, making a note of it and sharing with me would be very helpful, as sometimes I can't cover every corner. Thanks!

[Fuzz]

I didn't want to start an entire new thread, but TFF is yet again on a new server. It has PHP5/MySQL5 and is the only website on the box. The move was pretty smooth, but I know there may be some permission issues throughout the entire site. I am also working on getting everything organized again, so some pages will be missing. I expect to have everything cleaned up 100% by the end of the night.

As always, please report any small bugs/issues here... thanks a lot for your help,

[VidenTheColdOne]

i was having some problems logging on. I would log on, but it would keep acting as if though i didn't. I would keep putting in my information, but it would not log me in. My stuff was right, and it wasn't saying it was wrong, it just woulden't let me log on, but im on now.... i think, lowl.

[postalblowfish7]

didn't know where else to post this - but THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE RSS FEED!

i live and breathe google reader