1. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2006
    Messages:
    2,815
    Likes Received:
    696
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ

    Are you getting database errors?

    Discussion in 'Support & Feedback' started by Daniel, May 27, 2013.

    Recently I've been getting an increased number of email notifications about database "going away"/timing out, as well as being unable to connect (and seeing this error) when loading the site, or just having the site load unusually slow.

    How many of you are experiencing this as well? Errors or slow loading time? How often? Do you think it a major issue?

    I ask because it's hard to gauge how much this is affecting everyone trying to access the site and to determine what should be done about it. If this is a major issue we're going to have to upgrade our server and/or at least our server's memory ASAP (which financially isn't possible currently). I haven't gotten any reports here, via PM, or via email, so I hope this issue is less widespread than it appears to me personally. I'd like to gauge the severity of the issue and plan accordingly.
     
  2. Macaberz

    Macaberz Pay it forward Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2012
    Messages:
    3,143
    Likes Received:
    300
    Location:
    Arnhem, The Netherlands
    It happens to me once in a while, I'd say 3 or 4 times per week. I think that upgrading would be a good thing to do eventually, but right now, the problems are (for me at least) bareable.
     
  3. Garball

    Garball Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Messages:
    2,827
    Likes Received:
    1,337
    Location:
    S'port, LA
    past four days have been slow loading to "not able to connect"
     
  4. JessWrite

    JessWrite Word Nerd & Proud! Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2011
    Messages:
    4,245
    Likes Received:
    289
    Location:
    My Old Kentucky Home
    I've had database errors over the last two days, but thought it might of just been me as my computer seems to run slow at times. They have mostly been in the evening hours. I had two today. One at around 5:00 that lasted for around five minutes and one around 9:40, it lasted about ten minutes. I'm also in the Eastern Standard Time.

    When I can access the site after those few minutes, it still looks like nothing happened to everyone else. Sometimes there are posts that went up during the time I couldn't be on.

    Hope this helps you a bit. :)
     
  5. Nee

    Nee Member

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2013
    Messages:
    689
    Likes Received:
    24
    I also have over the last few days have had trouble connecting and and database errors.


    *Edit: Just as I posted this my computer froze and I had to unplug it from the wall. This kind of thing will keep people from coming back here if it happens too often.
     
  6. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2008
    Messages:
    7,851
    Likes Received:
    3,339
    Location:
    Boston
    I've had 2 or 3 database errors over the past few days, and the site has been slow at times. However, as of right now, it's not that bad.
     
  7. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2006
    Messages:
    2,815
    Likes Received:
    696
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    So is the consensus that this is happening more frequently over the past few days?
     
  8. JessWrite

    JessWrite Word Nerd & Proud! Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2011
    Messages:
    4,245
    Likes Received:
    289
    Location:
    My Old Kentucky Home
    Like Nee, after I posted my message above I had a Database error that lasted 26 minutes...

    It is very frequent for me, but has only started happening this week.
     
  9. Isaiah JS

    Isaiah JS New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2013
    Messages:
    48
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    Illinois, USA
    I get it on my iPod sometimes, but the site works fine on my computer.
     
  10. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2013
    Messages:
    755
    Likes Received:
    192
    Location:
    Canada
    I'd say it's picked up the past few days yeah.
     
  11. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    Sometimes it's slow to load. Only had one, "cannot connect" and it happened to be tonight, couple hours ago.
     
  12. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2010
    Messages:
    10,742
    Likes Received:
    9,991
    Location:
    Near Sedro Woolley, Washington
    I've had one database error today, but the site has been very slow for the past two days.
     
  13. Garball

    Garball Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Messages:
    2,827
    Likes Received:
    1,337
    Location:
    S'port, LA
    Just had a thirty-five minute period of not being able to connect. "data base error"
     
  14. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    For me, it's been slow to load intermittently (not for long periods) since I joined in March.
     
  15. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    WTF was that? Whoa! I got some bizarre forum skin with all the threads locked and then some bizarre forum with weird avatars that looked like an ad attack.
     
  16. Macaberz

    Macaberz Pay it forward Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2012
    Messages:
    3,143
    Likes Received:
    300
    Location:
    Arnhem, The Netherlands
    Usually forum CMS's have some sort of database cleanup script, I am sure you have already tried that Daniel, but it never hurts to check ;)
     
  17. blackstar21595

    blackstar21595 New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2013
    Messages:
    585
    Likes Received:
    33
    Location:
    Brooklyn,NY
    Same here. Happened to me a couple of times in the past few days,but it's tolerable.
     
  18. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    Slow to load sometimes for me too, over the past week or so. I usually just go away and try again a few minutes later. Usually it comes back on the second try. I assumed it was my computer, for some reason - using Mac OSX 10.5.8 (Leopard with updates.) Browser is Firefox 11.0.
     
  19. Nee

    Nee Member

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2013
    Messages:
    689
    Likes Received:
    24
    Yeah, I got those. And seems like every other time, after posting I get the top part of the screen over lapping the bottom part and I have to click refresh, or leave to get out of it. I've only have to shut it down at the power strip twice...but I really don't like doing that.
     
  20. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 1, 2008
    Messages:
    23,826
    Likes Received:
    20,815
    Location:
    El Tembloroso Caribe

    Yup, Daniel. All this past week. Daily.

    P.S. The other night I had walked away from the 'puter for a couple of minutes and when I came back and hit refresh, 1) it took forever, 2) I was only one of five members (not visitors) 'on-line'. There had been a two or three dozen just before I walked away from the screen, so clearly everyone got booted.
     
  21. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 19, 2007
    Messages:
    36,161
    Likes Received:
    2,827
    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Yes. Sporadically, and mostly when doing New Posts searches.
     
  22. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2006
    Messages:
    2,815
    Likes Received:
    696
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    Thank you all for the feedback. I believe I found the primary cause of this issue. I think I've fixed it. If you noticed a change - faster loading times, no errors - let me know.

    There were two instances in the two days where we had to restart the server and when we upgraded to the latest version of MySQL. This might account for those longer times, but 35 minutes seems much longer. Let me know if it happens again.

    Okay, I certainly haven't experienced this so I'm not sure what you're talking about. This is concerning though, especially that bit about the power strip. How often is this happening? If this happens again, would you be so kind as to take a screenshot for me? If I can see what you're seeing I can fix it, but without seeing it myself I can't do much.

    We have done that, thanks for the suggestion though!

    The search function does seem to be resource intensive and slow down the site. On a somewhat related issue, I did update the search index and I think we're getting better search results than before.
     
  23. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    The weird thing with the different forum skin and locked threads only happened once. It still said this forum, the skin was green and the subforums were the correct names. I got the page when opening a tab, not clicking on a link so I was on this forum. I closed the tab, left another tab to the forum on the bar but stayed away from all of it, not knowing if you'd had a virus or malware attack. Couple hours later I clicked on the tab I hadn't closed and everything was back to normal.

    And despite the threads all being locked, I clicked on something and got an open thread, but I can't recall what that was. Given the weird avatars, I ran away. :eek: They weren't porn or anything, but they were larger vertical rectangles, all with images of people, I only recall females but I didn't stay there long enough to say that for sure.

    The only thing it looked like to me was a malware attack. I assume you've scanned for such things? Is there a board history that might show such things?

    A Google searched turned up recent malware attacking web sites using "Apache". It's all Greek to me. And don't mind me if I'm off base, I'm paranoid about malware but not very knowledgeable about it.
     
  24. Macaberz

    Macaberz Pay it forward Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2012
    Messages:
    3,143
    Likes Received:
    300
    Location:
    Arnhem, The Netherlands
    @Daniel

    Might I also recommend the built-in profiler in Firefox? It's located webdeveloper -> webconsole and then in the screen below it's the profiler. I haven't tested extensively yet but, the running facebook plugin seemed to take up most of the time, so maybe cutting "fat" like that might help the site's performance without having to upgrade RAM.
     
  25. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2006
    Messages:
    2,815
    Likes Received:
    696
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    Is it possible thaty ou were somehow viewing our original skin?

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070217132543/https://www.writingforums.org/

    I don't still have it installed, but if you used archive or if there happened to be a cached version somewhere, that might explain it. I only mention because you said greenish theme. Do you recall what tab/on-site link you clicked?
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice