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outages and contacts

Posted: September 18th, 2019, 3:31 pm
by didds
I've noticed with the couple of outages very recently we of course get a message

"eneral Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Connection timed out [2002]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists."

But of course we donjt have any way of contacting an adminstrator :-)

Is there a generic admin email account we could email (presumably forwards to a real one etc) ?

Or other ideas ?

cheers

didds

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 18th, 2019, 5:01 pm
by Clariman
You can always PM myself or Stooz. Or email us at those names at lemonfool.co.uk

We still share servers with other sites. We are looking again at dedicated servers to stop this happening.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 18th, 2019, 6:00 pm
by tjh290633
If it hangs after you have posted a reply, open the same forum in a new tab, and if your post is the most recent, then close the other one. That's assuming that you can get onto the site in the first place.

TJH

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 18th, 2019, 6:16 pm
by PinkDalek
tjh290633 wrote:... That's assuming that you can get onto the site in the first place.


That was the position for a lengthy period of time this morning.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 19th, 2019, 8:15 pm
by XFool
More problems this morning:

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

User already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 12:46 pm
by Itsallaguess
There looks to have been more SQL-error outages this morning, and I saw one error that said this -

User lemonfoo_6dyf already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203] An sql error occurred while fetching this page.

Given that this username isn't one I recognise as a poster, I wonder if the user is connected to some sort of configured 'bot' process, and looking at the Lemon Fool search-history for that particular user-name, it seems that this 'user' has regularly been the source of some of these SQL site-error issues -

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/search.php?keywords=lemonfoo_6dyf

I'll bring this specific point to Stooz's attention to see if this is something that can perhaps be managed better at a user-level for that particular 'user'.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 12:50 pm
by monabri
I've had the connection times out error (2002) preventing any access at all. I see that there are only 170 people browsing which is well below the 1083 all time high.

There have also been time out issues when posting..the post goes through but the window doesn't close as though the posting can't complete.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 2:54 pm
by AsleepInYorkshire
Itsallaguess wrote:There looks to have been more SQL-error outages this morning, and I saw one error that said this -

User lemonfoo_6dyf already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203] An sql error occurred while fetching this page.

Is it a denial of service attack?

AiY

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 3:15 pm
by Itsallaguess
AsleepInYorkshire wrote:
Itsallaguess wrote:There looks to have been more SQL-error outages this morning, and I saw one error that said this -

User lemonfoo_6dyf already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203] An sql error occurred while fetching this page.


Is it a denial of service attack?


I don't think so.

I've not heard anything back from Stooz yet, but from the brief investigations I've done via Google, I suspect that the 'user' listed is actually the single 'connection' that our hosting site uses to connect us to the SQL server, so if that's correct then we might *all* be using that 'user' to connect to the site SQL database, and we might simply be swamping the SQL database with our collective 'limit' of connections that we're allowed at any particular time.

I know Stooz has previously said that this is a hosting issue, and there is a relatively small current limit to the SQL connections that the site can make via that hosting server, so I think this might perhaps simply be a consequence of being as popular a site as it currently is, and the growing number of issues like this are simply reflecting the rising tide of regular concurrent connections that the site is seeing...

Nice problem to have in a way, I suppose, and I know Stooz is actively looking to solve the issue..

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 7:02 pm
by PinkDalek
Itsallaguess wrote:... I know Stooz has previously said that this is a hosting issue, and there is a relatively small current limit to the SQL connections that the site can make via that hosting server, so I think this might perhaps simply be a consequence of being as popular a site as it currently is ...


Stooz has also said it is a shared server. Such that the number of connections causing the problem is not merely down to those seeking to access The Lemon Fool (today being the worst I've experienced over the years here).

Would that make sense to you?

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 7:17 pm
by AleisterCrowley
It has been timing out for me most of the afternoon. Only just managed to log on

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 7:26 pm
by Dod101
Glad I am not the only one. Can someone in authority do something about it? very frustrating.

Dod

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 7:46 pm
by monabri
Currently 100 users online at TLF. The other users on the shared server must be unduly busy!

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 9:17 pm
by scotia
Just adding my problems today to the list of other users. Lots of failures to log in, and occasionally when logged in, further failures to access contributions. Most commonly - Connection timed out [2002]. Occasionally User lemonfoo_6dfy already has more than ' max_user_connections' active connections [1203]
Both are General Error SQL ERROR [ mysqli ] An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists
All of the above using a PC over a wifi connection to a broadband link. I hope this info helps.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 10:12 pm
by stooz
Thanks for your reports and my apologies.
I will post soon on the plans as it will require a short outage during the upgrade but it will hopefully result in a far better service.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 22nd, 2019, 10:52 pm
by AsleepInYorkshire
stooz wrote:Thanks for your reports and my apologies.
I will pay soon on the plans as it will require a short outage during the upgrade but it will hopefully result in s fast better service.

I can only speak for myself but hope I speak for the entire community. There's absolutely no need to apologise. What is happening here with this community is fantastic and you have made that possible. Whatever needs to be done should, in my opinion be done in your time.

Thank you

AiY

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 23rd, 2019, 7:02 am
by TheMotorcycleBoy
Yes, I saw this most of yesterday afternoon.

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Connection timed out [2002]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

What was the consensus? Is TLF hitting the maximum number of sessions permitted on the hosting DB or something? Hopefully not a genuine data integrity error.

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 23rd, 2019, 10:04 am
by PinkDalek
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Yes, I saw this most of yesterday afternoon.

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Connection timed out [2002]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.
...


Hi Matt,

I can't help with your questions, other than there's been no indication of any integrity errors in the many separate Topics on this problem.

What I would mention, in passing, is I notice you often use pre and /pre in your replies, such that on a SmartPhone and iPad etc some sideways scrolling is required. I think Italics would do the job without the resultant scroll bar.

Foolish regards,
PD

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 23rd, 2019, 12:19 pm
by stooz
No it's just getting bigger and bigger and more popular so the existing hardware is starting to creak.
We will upgrade asap. I need to build a test transfer to make sure it works then repeat with live data

Re: outages and contacts

Posted: September 23rd, 2019, 3:37 pm
by TheMotorcycleBoy
PinkDalek wrote:
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Yes, I saw this most of yesterday afternoon.

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Connection timed out [2002]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.
...


Hi Matt,

I can't help with your questions, other than there's been no indication of any integrity errors in the many separate Topics on this problem.

What I would mention, in passing, is I notice you often use pre and /pre in your replies, such that on a SmartPhone and iPad etc some sideways scrolling is required. I think Italics would do the job without the resultant scroll bar.

Foolish regards,
PD

Sorry, for the "pre" stuff. Being a computer nerd I typically used the fixed width (i.e. pre) when quoting computery stuff, and a computer error message seemed to fit the bill! Of course it's my modus operandi at work, i.e. quoting code, diagnostics etc. in a fixed width type font.

I'll try to do less of it, in the non-analytical forums of TLF in future.

Yours foolishly ;)

Matt