IMPORTANT: Database reverted to Sept 15th copy, perhaps temporarily!!

[WA]

To help me isolate the strange instability issues with the forums that started on Sept 16th, please note that at the moment I've reverted the database back to the Sept 15th copy. This could mean two things:

1) If the problems with the forums are fixed as a result of the reverting, this means I'll have to stick to this copy of the database, and posts made after Sept 15th are lost unfortunately.

2) If the problems still persist, then I'll be restoring the latest copy of the database, which is Sept 24th, and we go from there.

Due to the uncertainty at this point, you should bare in mind that any posts made on CF now may be flushed if 2) turns out to be the outcome.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but this appears to be a necessary step for me to diagnose the problems, which specifically are:

1) A vBulletin database error instead of the actual page you're viewing
2) Slow or inaccessible pages.

Please post any issues you experience with the forums at this point in this thread.

[Philip M]

At 1306 GMT was working perfectly as far as I can see.

[jlhaslip]

I had several "lags" the other day, but nothing serious...

No doubt you and the crew will work through this issue. Thanks for providing the site in the first place.

[Fumigator]

That's a shame because I was thanked like 500 times yesterday. Oh well

p.s. I'll go ahead and allow you to add 500 to my thanked count to make up for it. Yes I'm bored.

[sedaniel]

Is this the reason for my account being deleted? I tried to logon this morning and found my posts gone and when I reregistered it let me use the same name... that's how I found out I wasn't banned or anything (I was trying to figure out if I'd done something wrong, lol).

[oracleguy]

Originally Posted by sedaniel

Is this the reason for my account being deleted? I tried to logon this morning and found my posts gone and when I reregistered it let me use the same name... that's how I found out I wasn't banned or anything (I was trying to figure out if I'd done something wrong, lol).

Yeah, that is the reason. The database also contains the list of registered users and their information so if you registered after the 15th, your account would no longer exist.

[mlseim]

Sometimes, PHP is just too much fun

[WA]

Originally Posted by Fumigator

That's a shame because I was thanked like 500 times yesterday. Oh well

p.s. I'll go ahead and allow you to add 500 to my thanked count to make up for it. Yes I'm bored.

Perhaps, but on the upside, all the thanks predating Sept 15th are now back. Of course, this could be temporary if reverting back to the old copy of the database doesn't help with the issues. We're deep in the rabbit hole now...

[BoldUlysses]

Can we do anything to help? As mentioned above, thanks for your hard work and just for providing the site.

[WA]

Thanks for the offer. Right now, please just report any continuing database or site inaccessible/slow errors you may experience here. Other than that, at this point, there's not much I can do either actually except wait and see if the revert has made any difference.

[VIPStephan]

Ain’t there any error log where one can find out what’s wrong? Surely, these issues don’t come from nothing. Maybe the server/database has been hijacked or something?

Maybe a fresh install of the forum software and DB would help?

[WA]

Originally Posted by VIPStephan

Ain’t there any error log where one can find out what’s wrong? Surely, these issues don’t come from nothing. Maybe the server/database has been hijacked or something?

Maybe a fresh install of the forum software and DB would help?

Hmm nothing that dramatic or drastic unfortunately. Basically the database has grown to be very large, so rather routine things like a database or server crash are amplified and run the risk of doing some serious issues to the integrity of the database. This seemed to have happened on September 15th; either that, or the server is simply no longer able to reliably handle the size of the database. It may be time to move CF to a different server than the one it's on very soon with increased resources.

[o0O0o.o0O0o]

I think 2GB database size is not that large

[abduraooft]

Got another DB error now, and just out of curiosity, when looked the html page source, there is

<!--
Database error in vBulletin :

mysql_pconnect() [&lt;a href='function.mysql-pconnect'&gt;function.mysql-pconnect&lt;/a&gt;]: User has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections
.(xxxx).php on line xx

MySQL Error :
Error Number :
Request Date : Thursday, September 25th 2008 @ 01:28:16 AM
.......

Why a mysql_pconnect() ?

Originally Posted by php.net/mysql_pconnect

Using persistent connections can require a bit of tuning of your Apache and MySQL configurations to ensure that you do not exceed the number of connections allowed by MySQL.

Edit: PMed WA

[WA]

Thanks for the info abduraooft! Some of that information may just prove very helpful, starting with the fact that it reminds me to turn back on error reporting via email (which I had turned off a few months ago). I've disabled persistent connections for now as well.

Thanks.