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Forum Server must have ran out of mem again


solo63137

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All night last night I was not able to get the forum to load... All I got was:

 

SQL error: Can't create a new thread (errno 12). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug

SQL error code:

 

This morning its seeming to load OK...

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Mods, if the Geocaching.com Web Site forum is the wrong place for this please move it, because it's actually about the forums.Groundspeak.com site.

 

The geocaching.com site actually works very fast, no issues there, and I can't remember when last it took more than a few seconds for page loads or few minutes for PQ delivery.

 

My interaction with the geocaching forums at http://forums.Groundspeak.com, however, has slowed to a crawl, or fails altogether.

 

More often than not I click on the 'last post by' icon and I get a blank screen, and wait. and wait, and wait.

 

It often times out when attempting to load the last post and gives me an error message. Other times it just spaces out and sits there, blank, never to return.

 

A reply almost always times out, so I have learned to copy the post before hitting submit because the chances are greater than not that it will bomb when I hit 'submit'.

 

If I hit 'back' and resubmit the post it may create a duplicate, so the lock-up is sometimes apparently occurring after the post is in fact submitted and accepted by the server, then it locks, making you think that the post didn't, um, post.

 

So, to avoid duplicate posts I usually have to exit and re-enter the site then post it as new. When I do this I will sometimes see that my previous attempt worked and my post is in fact there, other times not.

 

Mostly, though, I just sit and wait.

 

I am retired and pop into the forums multiple times daily at all hours of the night and day, though my PC is on and signed in to the forums pretty much 24/7, and there does not seem to be a pattern that I can relate to server load... it's pretty much always slow. This makes me wonder if it's my machine.

 

I am running XP Home SP3, Firefox 3 (current) and AVG Internet Security 8.5.339 (the most current) on an HP Pavilion laptop w/ AMD64 processor with 512Mb of RAM over a 1.5Mbit Roadrunner Cable connection.

 

Now my question(s)!

 

Is this server error or is it my PC?

 

Is AVG Internet Security doing this to me?

 

Is Roadrunner throttling communications with forums.Groundspeak.com?

 

Has Vinny cast a spell on me?

 

Is it some other question I don't know to ask?

 

Any suggestions?

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No, it's not you. The forums are choking on the traffic we get and that is why you see errors all the time. It's a good idea to check that your post went through or not (even if you get an error) before you resubmit.

 

We're actively working on a replacement for the forum software, which we hope to release some time in the next couple months. I apologize to everyone for the forum performance - it affects me as well so I know it's annoying.

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No, it's not you. The forums are choking on the traffic we get and that is why you see errors all the time. It's a good idea to check that your post went through or not (even if you get an error) before you resubmit.

 

We're actively working on a replacement for the forum software, which we hope to release some time in the next couple months. I apologize to everyone for the forum performance - it affects me as well so I know it's annoying.

Thanks for answering that Nate. I have been wondering the same thing lately.

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No, it's not you. The forums are choking on the traffic we get and that is why you see errors all the time. It's a good idea to check that your post went through or not (even if you get an error) before you resubmit.

 

We're actively working on a replacement for the forum software, which we hope to release some time in the next couple months. I apologize to everyone for the forum performance - it affects me as well so I know it's annoying.

 

It seems a little strange that this forum chokes with only 200-300 users online (if the number shown in the Board Statistics section at the bottom of the front page can be believed) while the most users ever online at once (in a 15 minute period) is over 1700.

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Yea I saw anther post somewhere that said they were going with some software called ""Community Server""....

 

I wished they would have went with Vbulletin... I've been reading forums for years and its the best software I have ran across... From a user stand point...

 

Seemed pretty easy to admin too... As far as creating Topic and Sub Topic Areas, customizing and moderating...

 

I think its only 100.00 for a full package...

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Thank you Nate and others for the answer! I can deal with issues and growing pains, I just wanted to be sure that it wasn't me causing my own grief! Unfortunately that's not unheard of! :rolleyes:

 

As far as the suggestion about VBulletin, I have run a forum using it for about a year (http://w4aga.com) and, again maybe because I know not what I do in such areas, I've found it to have a number of flaws and to be labor-intensive. Great for a low-traffic free site like mine but I can't imagine how much work it would take to duplicate this forum using it, much less improve upon what we have.

 

Thanks again... you folks run the best forum on the internet, that it isn't perfect is perfectly understandable! :)

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As far as the suggestion about VBulletin, I have run a forum using it for about a year (http://w4aga.com) and, again maybe because I know not what I do in such areas, I've found it to have a number of flaws and to be labor-intensive. Great for a low-traffic free site like mine but I can't imagine how much work it would take to duplicate this forum using it, much less improve upon what we have.

 

 

To set it up from the Get go, with all the topic areas and sections, yes tons of Work....

 

Once its all set up and running and the database is all good, all file permissions are set right and everything working, I'm not sure what so labor intensive... That is unless the admins have everything all locked down to where anything a user does has to get approved 1st...

 

I'm not trying to be argumentive, but I see the amount of traffic (atleast in posts, not in hits) that this place gets... Its not really that outragious to be as bad as it gets...

 

Here is a list of a few of the forums that I frequent (all running vbulletin) and run really well... Very rarely have I experience lag and never time out and error messages...

 

http://www.avsforum.com/ <-- HUGE, HUGE, HUGE forum I guarentee this site gets as much traffic, hits, posts and pics posted as this geocaching site...

 

http://www.s-seriesforum.com

 

http://www.s10forum.com/

 

http://www.goldismoney.info

 

http://thesignsyndicate.com/forums/

 

http://www.signs101.com/

 

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/

 

I could list more, but you get the point...

 

I also helped mod a pretty decent sized Custom Car and Truck Clubs forum for several years and past setting it up, I don't remember any issues or anything labor intensive....

 

*Edit* as a note of Irony, I got a few timeout and error messages trying to post this reply... :rolleyes:

 

Still despite the performance grumbles, sorta like you said, this is an awsome forum, not because of the Hardware or software it runs on, but because of the topic and the great people running and contributing too it!!!

 

You guys rock! Glad I found my way here...

Edited by solo63137
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Thank you Nate and others for the answer! I can deal with issues and growing pains, I just wanted to be sure that it wasn't me causing my own grief! Unfortunately that's not unheard of! :laughing:

 

As far as the suggestion about VBulletin, I have run a forum using it for about a year (http://w4aga.com) and, again maybe because I know not what I do in such areas, I've found it to have a number of flaws and to be labor-intensive. Great for a low-traffic free site like mine but I can't imagine how much work it would take to duplicate this forum using it, much less improve upon what we have.

 

Thanks again... you folks run the best forum on the internet, that it isn't perfect is perfectly understandable! ;)

Are you sure Vinny didn't cast a spell on you?? :rolleyes: I caught that one. :)

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Well just recently started this "hobby".

 

Was going to upgrade my membership, but until I see the site having fewer issues, that has been put on hold.

Now they will have less money and therefore less resources for an upgrade - that'll show em....... :)

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Well just recently started this "hobby".

 

Was going to upgrade my membership, but until I see the site having fewer issues, that has been put on hold.

To be fair, I paid for the features on the main site, and that has generally been trouble-free. I think there's only two things you get over here in the forums, which is : the ability to set your title, and access to the Off Topic forum. Oh, yeah, and Hamster Caching forum, of course. (I'm not kidding. Really.)

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Well just recently started this "hobby".

 

Was going to upgrade my membership, but until I see the site having fewer issues, that has been put on hold.

To be fair, I paid for the features on the main site, and that has generally been trouble-free. I think there's only two things you get over here in the forums, which is : the ability to set your title, and access to the Off Topic forum. Oh, yeah, and Hamster Caching forum, of course. (I'm not kidding. Really.)

 

Geocaching.com runs great. I've had few issues with gc.com and any issue there has been, has been minor. The forums are a different story. Timeouts, database errors, hanging pages...these happen daily. But, I wouldn't let the performance of the Groundspeak forums deter you from upgrading your membership...since as Chrysalides has said, the "perks" of being a premium member as far as the forums go are pretty minor. The perks you get at geocaching.com, however, are well worth the money.

 

Bruce

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Are you sure Vinny didn't cast a spell on you?? :) I caught that one. :anibad:

One can never be sure. I've been very careful to keep my tinfoil hat duct taped on but recently my cat started to look at me funny so I thought maybe it was time to wash my hair. I lined the walls of the shower with foil since I would have my hat off for a few seconds but there was nothing I could do about the shower drain, so his evil mind control hex could have gotten in that way. :anibad:

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Are you sure Vinny didn't cast a spell on you?? :) I caught that one. :anibad:

One can never be sure. I've been very careful to keep my tinfoil hat duct taped on but recently my cat started to look at me funny so I thought maybe it was time to wash my hair. I lined the walls of the shower with foil since I would have my hat off for a few seconds but there was nothing I could do about the shower drain, so his evil mind control hex could have gotten in that way. :anibad:

You need a tinfoil hat for the cat. Direct eye contact with a posessed cat will do it, even with your tinfoil hat on.

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All night last night I was not able to get the forum to load... All I got was:

 

SQL error: Can't create a new thread (errno 12). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug

SQL error code:

 

This morning its seeming to load OK...

Same here. If it's any help, I shut down Firefox then opened it again. I was then able to get into the forums as normal.

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Well just recently started this "hobby".

 

Was going to upgrade my membership, but until I see the site having fewer issues, that has been put on hold.

Now they will have less money and therefore less resources for an upgrade - that'll show em....... :lol:

 

Confused??

 

Thought I was the costumer and they're suppose to be showing me?

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Thought I was the costumer and they're suppose to be showing me?

Everyone has the same forum access whether you're a premium member or a regular member.

 

By "holding out," you're only hurting yourself by missing out on all the features that are available to premium members over on the geocaching.com site.

Edited by Skippermark
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No, it's not you. The forums are choking on the traffic we get and that is why you see errors all the time. It's a good idea to check that your post went through or not (even if you get an error) before you resubmit.

 

We're actively working on a replacement for the forum software, which we hope to release some time in the next couple months. I apologize to everyone for the forum performance - it affects me as well so I know it's annoying.

Thank you Nate for giving us some hope. Can you keep us updated as things go? Please?

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Is it possible this could have something to do with the problem? http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=20815 What version of mysql is the forum server running?

 

Or does the mysql max_connections variable need to be increased and/or the machine needs more memory?

 

IPB should be able to handle the amount of traffic this forum sees. Check out the first few boards on this list and you'll see that there are IPB forums out there that handle much more traffic than this one. It can be done.

 

mysqlerr12.gif

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Is it possible this could have something to do with the problem? http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=20815 What version of mysql is the forum server running?

 

Or does the mysql max_connections variable need to be increased and/or the machine needs more memory?

 

IPB should be able to handle the amount of traffic this forum sees. Check out the first few boards on this list and you'll see that there are IPB forums out there that handle much more traffic than this one. It can be done.

 

mysqlerr12.gif

 

I am beginning to believe the problem is something other than the number of users online as well (although the number of users reading and the number of users posting, while related, are two different things to a database). I've been keeping an eye on the users online stats and I am not seeing a relationship to the number of users vs the number of timeouts.

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I am beginning to believe the problem is something other than the number of users online as well (although the number of users reading and the number of users posting, while related, are two different things to a database). I've been keeping an eye on the users online stats and I am not seeing a relationship to the number of users vs the number of timeouts.

 

I've had the unfortunate pleasure of using mysql in the past. It's not a very robust and scalable system. Hopefully Groundspeak is looking into a solution utilizing MSSql. It makes more sense to run the forums with the same technology (.net/mssql) as the geocaching.com website. Why have all your expertise with Microsoft based products and then run the forums on php/mysql?

 

Just my 2 cents

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Tossarrian is correct even the free PHPBB has boards way busier than here and working great! I will shut up about it though as it is not productive.

 

I'm sure that you are aware that there are many other variables than simply how many logged users (my assumption of your definition of "busy"). How much history is being stored, how many of the logged users are posting (writing to the database) as apposed to reading (we tend to be a very verbal group, I would say), and probably many other things that don't come to mind right now. Nevertheless, I suspect that you are right.

 

Curiously enough, today has been very good for me. Only two timeouts, and was able to get right back in. (there, I probably just jynxed the site for the rest of the night... sorry, folks)

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Tossarrian is correct even the free PHPBB has boards way busier than here and working great! I will shut up about it though as it is not productive.

 

I'm sure that you are aware that there are many other variables than simply how many logged users (my assumption of your definition of "busy"). How much history is being stored, how many of the logged users are posting (writing to the database) as apposed to reading (we tend to be a very verbal group, I would say), and probably many other things that don't come to mind right now. Nevertheless, I suspect that you are right.

 

Curiously enough, today has been very good for me. Only two timeouts, and was able to get right back in. (there, I probably just jynxed the site for the rest of the night... sorry, folks)

 

I agree completely.. Most forums, the majority just read posts. This forum has a huge number of database writes compared to most. There's a big difference between 50 concurrent queries and 50 concurrent writes. And I'm guessing the database is on the same machine as the web server.

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I agree completely.. Most forums, the majority just read posts. This forum has a huge number of database writes compared to most. There's a big difference between 50 concurrent queries and 50 concurrent writes. And I'm guessing the database is on the same machine as the web server.

 

Not sure I agree with that. I don't doubt that this forum gets more posts per day than many other forums out there. More than most though...that's anybody's guess. My point was that there are other forums out there using the same/similar software that get quite a bit more traffic than this one does.

 

Using the data from this forum's Today's top 10 posters page, I calculate that this forum has had roughly 1200 new posts today. Using similar data from a couple of the forums on the list I posted above,

idolforums.com has had roughly 9900 posts and layitlow.com has had roughly 10900 posts. Based on that I'd conclude that the IPB forum software and the amount of traffic this forum sees isn't the problem.

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I agree completely.. Most forums, the majority just read posts. This forum has a huge number of database writes compared to most. There's a big difference between 50 concurrent queries and 50 concurrent writes. And I'm guessing the database is on the same machine as the web server.

 

Not sure I agree with that. I don't doubt that this forum gets more posts per day than many other forums out there. More than most though...that's anybody's guess. My point was that there are other forums out there using the same/similar software that get quite a bit more traffic than this one does.

 

Using the data from this forum's Today's top 10 posters page, I calculate that this forum has had roughly 1200 new posts today. Using similar data from a couple of the forums on the list I posted above,

idolforums.com has had roughly 9900 posts and layitlow.com has had roughly 10900 posts. Based on that I'd conclude that the IPB forum software and the amount of traffic this forum sees isn't the problem.

 

Those are some very useful statistics, Yossarian. I hope the PTB take them into consideration. I also wish that they would come out of mushroom management mode and let us know and engage in some discussion. But that probably is not going to happen.

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The only time that I have a problem with the Forum's is between 1100 and 1430 CST.

 

BrrrMo

 

Lunchtime throughout the US timezones. That isn't the only time I have problems by far, but it often is a bad time range.

 

Normaly it is late at night UK time when it dosn't work for me. But it's working fine tonight so far.

 

I am realy just posting to find out if there is an ETA for the new fourm software that Nate (others may have as well from GS) has talked about. I understand that there is a lot of work to do, but an ETA might be usefull just to give pepole an idea of when things might get better?

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Gawd knows what's causing this problem but I've found a way round it. When I get this SQL error I re-boot my router and get a new IP address. I can then get into the forum straight away.

 

Hardly elegant but at least it works.

 

I don't think thats what fixes it...

 

I think the time it takes you to unplug your wireless and get a new address, the server has recovered itself and will now except your post or request...

 

Also, typically, most CPEs behind Cable and DSL Modems are dynamicly assigned and given DHCP leases of 8 Hours or longer, so it would not really change unless you caught it at the right time on renew...

 

The residential Wireless and Wired Routers usally oppereate the same way in reguards to leases behind them... Except they give your CPE a private vs Public address...

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Gawd knows what's causing this problem but I've found a way round it. When I get this SQL error I re-boot my router and get a new IP address. I can then get into the forum straight away.

 

Hardly elegant but at least it works.

 

I don't think thats what fixes it...

 

I think the time it takes you to unplug your wireless and get a new address, the server has recovered itself and will now except your post or request...

 

Also, typically, most CPEs behind Cable and DSL Modems are dynamicly assigned and given DHCP leases of 8 Hours or longer, so it would not really change unless you caught it at the right time on renew...

 

The residential Wireless and Wired Routers usally oppereate the same way in reguards to leases behind them... Except they give your CPE a private vs Public address...

 

Granny Clampett's famous cold remedy... "Just take a cup a day for a week to ten days and your cold will be gone"

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