500 Internal Server Error

[Quiff Boy]

Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited mySQL databases, unlimited domains, 160GB storage, right on the ISP's backbone...

blimey

[6FeetOver]

After several 500 errors in a row, I got this:


"General Error

Could not obtain topic information

DEBUG MODE

SQL Error : 1053 Server shutdown in progress

SELECT t.*, u.username, u.user_id, u2.username as user2, u2.user_id as id2, p.post_time, p.post_username FROM phpbb_topics t, phpbb_users u, phpbb_posts p, phpbb_users u2 WHERE t.forum_id = 2 AND t.topic_poster = u.user_id AND p.post_id = t.topic_last_post_id AND p.poster_id = u2.user_id AND t.topic_type = 2 ORDER BY t.topic_last_post_id DESC

Line : 297
File : viewforum.php"

[mh]

Bleagh.

I just got the old "critical one" and thought I'd fallen into a timewarp.

[MadameButterfly]

Okay I haven't read from page one, but I got them whilst in HL from posting in open forum and then going into my PM box, that 500 thingy.

And one of my post's didn't come through, the submit button had been pushed and it just took forever and then carried on me thinking it had gone through but got lost.
(Probably not relevant)

But that HTTP 500 fault is still a fault.

[Dark]

Yeah, been getting it today.

[Quiff Boy]

yeah, it was struggling yesterday

no updates on the dedicated server yet i'm afraid. it says their turnaround is 'up to a few weeks', so it shouldn't be too long now...

You are on the waiting list for a DreamHost PS. We will notify you via email when complete, in up to a few weeks

hang on in there

meanwhile, i'll mention to their support that there was a bit of trouble yesterday and see of that hurries them along

[Pista]

Not trying to a pain QB but have you looked at phpBB3 again recently? It's in 'proper' release now; I installed it for a client and it's a dream. I'm guessing it would be a pain in the unmentionables to upgrade though...

Without going wildly OT.
Did you find any nasties along the way?
We are thinking of upgrading cureconnections & are going to wait until the end of the European leg of the tour to avoid downtime when people want to see news.
Just keen to know bugs if any & fixes/workarounds to be sure we can do it.

[Quiff Boy]

Not trying to a pain QB but have you looked at phpBB3 again recently? It's in 'proper' release now; I installed it for a client and it's a dream. I'm guessing it would be a pain in the unmentionables to upgrade though...

Without going wildly OT.
Did you find any nasties along the way?
We are thinking of upgrading cureconnections & are going to wait until the end of the European leg of the tour to avoid downtime when people want to see news.
Just keen to know bugs if any & fixes/workarounds to be sure we can do it.

no real nasties other than the time it takes to port all the posts across & then re-run the scripts to populate the search tables

this might not be long for a small forum, but it takes a few hours for heartland... i'm thinking that cure site is quite large too

how the process works is:

1) install a fresh phpBB3 to a new database
2) go to the admin section and select 'upgrade'
3) tell it the location of the phpBB2 files
4) hit GO

it then runs a set of scripts that use your old forum php files to locate your phpbb2 database and copy everything to a new one

what this means is that:

1) you need 2 mysql databases (or if you only have 1, you need to specify a different prefix on the phpbb3 tables so that they dont overwrite the phpbb2 tables)

2) your existing phpbb2 database will remain untouched (meaning you can always roll back if needs be )

3) if your phpbb2 database is large (heartland's is over 200mb) you need to make sure your hosting company give you enough space to create a new one of a similar size while it copies all the data from the old one to the new one

you will also loose any non-standard phpbb2 addons you have installed (eg: heartland would loose all the birthdays, and the gallery integration would break)

also, from what i recall, phpbb3 comes with the ability to upload file attachments turned ON by default. this strikes me as a bit of an admin nightmare, so if you dont want people to be able to attach files to posts be sure to turn this off in the admin panel ASAP!

i think thats about it, but i will let you know if there's anything else i think of.

basically, the more 'out of the box' your phpbb2 installation is, the easier it will be.

and remember, it leaves your old phpbb2 database untouched, so you can always roll back to it if it all goes tits up

[Quiff Boy]

and back on track, my hosting company pointed me in the direction of this:

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/CPU_Resources_FAQ

i spotted this but, in particular:

Quick Tip: If you are running software that compresses the pages with zlib (many forum scripts have this option), disable compression. This will increase your bandwidth usages slightly, but drastically reduces CPU usage. When running SMF (Simple Machines Forum), this lowers CPU usage by roughly 75%.

we were running with gzip compression on (and have been since day one afaicr), so i've turned it off as of about 30 seconds ago, so lets see if that makes any difference.

we're not running the software they give a specific metric for (ie: SMF) but it might still make quite a difference.

we'll see... fingers crossed

[robertzombie]

So far so good...

[robertzombie]

^^

And upon pressing submit on that last post I got:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@myheartland.co.uk and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[Quiff Boy]

ar$e

[mh]

Seems quite a bit snappier though - maybe it's just a bit of an identity crisis?

[Quiff Boy]

Seems quite a bit snappier though - maybe it's just a bit of an identity crisis?

it does, doesn't it? i thought it was just my imagination

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Maybe it is just wishville thinking (oh boy), but it seems a bit more responsive here as well, indeed.

IZ.

[MadameButterfly]

Sorry QB but again today whilst trying to preview a post, it was taking forever and threw me out with one of the 500 faults, then when it came back all I had was the screen with TSOM Heartland Unofficial Discussion Forums and the pretty silver boarder, the rest was blank black with the message:

<input type = "hidden" name = "currency_code" va.

Don't know if that is relevant but will keep on hanging and keeping fingers crossed, even toes.

[Dark]

See, I thought it was going faster too, just didn't want to jinx it.

I've still been getting the odd 500 error or ridiculous load times, but sometimes it's faster, so..

[Pista]

Thanks Boss.
I'll pass on the tip.
Took me 20 mins to log in to read it, but I think it was worth it.

[eotunun]

Many, many 500s. They seem to be less when I'm logged in, though.

[Pista]

Apologies in advance if I double post this, but it is getting worse.
I can't even post messages without the whole thing stopping dead.
I stop the page & retry & double post

Some times I can't even open the site.

[Quiff Boy]

i'm still in the queue for the dedicated server. nothing i can do until then i'm afraid

[Dark]

Aye, well here's to hoping it comes quickly. If it 500s when the URL gives me a session ID, a successful refresh (when it eventually comes) will have logged me out of the site. And that means when I log in, I can't see any new posts, as it thinks I "last visited 2 minutes ago" or some such s**t.

Oh well, catch you all on the Ghostie side if it gets any worse.

[stufarq]

I get them all the time. Surely something can be done to sort out the server.

[Quiff Boy]

i just got one aswell

the problem is that its a shared server, so i dont have that level of control over it.

still in the queue for one of their 'dreamhost ps' servers though. might have to give them a prod and see how that's going

[stufarq]

Wasn't blaming you, Quiff Boy. But surely whoever actually runs or maintains the server can do something. Not that I really understand these things. or anything, for that matter.