Strange Errors and Timeouts with PDO
phreak
MVP
Hi all,
It seems that i receive 2 errors on one of my forums (i have more than one on the same server, but just the one seems to be affected) i'm not able to determine better than just by the words following. 
1.) When i leave my Vanillaforum open for quite some time (when writing a new post i think) i receive an error in the lower right corner, also the background gets blue'd out. I don't have the error at hand right now, but it might have something todo with the following issue.
2.) My users also report another error i was able to get a screenshot from them, it's not the whole screen so there is some information missing, but i would be glad if you could take a look inside. They tell me the forum shuts down, when they are surfing onto the page sometimes and it happens especially if they are writing a post. Very often some of them loose what they have written. For this error i attached a screenshot.
3.) What i experienced while Browsing my forum is a very small typical Vanilla popup box (20x20 Pixel) not showing any content but with an "x" in the upper right corner, that appears sometimes in the middle of the browser. It like to happen on posting saving, but then vanishes and the Post is normally postet.
All this seem to lead to a SQL error, where Javascript is not able to make saves to the database ("Save draft" operation) or probably while acting out Who's online.
I also attached a screenshot of my infophp(); where you can see the PDO state (which seems to be enabled). I'll be up to get you better information on this, but maybe you have this "Ahh!" moment where you instantly know what is wrong. I've also come across some threads about this picking up the problem i think:
http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/22307/bonk-i-move-my-site-to-a-new-vps-then-this-happened-another-wordpress-site-works-well
If checked php
Thanx a lot returning with more, phreak
V 2.0.18.8
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Comments
Nice opening post! Great example for every user. And you posted the Version info! (so hgtonight won't have to post his regular stuff this time, heheh).
Problem with that first screenshot is that I cannot see the real details of the error message, because there are some screens (switching screens?) hovered over those details
If you see that little box, no content with just a 'closing x' you need to check the details of that box. Right click on it, find the CSS properties, anything will help. Because the next step... is to check the sourcecode and find out in which cases that box is shown.
For now... Check Apache and MySQL Error logs. See what it brings.
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Thanx Underdog. While i'm still researching to activate Error logs i can show you one of those screens i spoke about in point 3. The small X-Box not telling anything.
I'll get back once i have decent error logs. Thanx for any ideas in the meantime here.
So, that's what Vanilla's gray screen of death looks like! I would also turn on display_errors and set error_reporting to E_ALL in php.ini config temporarily if it isn't already and see if anything shows up on the page and the Apache error logs.
Add Pages to Vanilla with the Basic Pages app
I hope your Mac has a right-click option... Right click on the 'cross' element and see what Chrome is telling you, FireFox, anything. I always Right click and click on 'inspect element', in Chrome and FireFox.
Or even 'view-source'. Anything helps. We need at least 1 CSS element to search for in the entire Vanilla source code.
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Mmh, my Wisdom is getting to its border here. My hoster says there are no mySQL Error logs and Apache logs are not necessary as its a PHP issue grummel. I can't prove that.
@underdog: This is the problem the error doesn't occur constantly with me. The screen of death as described by @Shadoware happens for me but just blinks up a 2nd and loads requested page while other users experience the dead end here and have to reload the page. My community is a babycommunity so almost no chance, to get them on with a page inspector.
I hope those errors happen to me today so i can get you clasess.
Sometimes PHP errors don't show up on the page, but are outputted through the Apache logs. You aren't sure what kind of problem it is yet, so MySQL and Apache error logs shouldn't be ruled out right away. It sounds like the problem can't be reproduced exactly, and it's different each time.
If the page reloads and redirects to the page it's supposed to, then it means that the procedure in the controller method went through to the point where the redirect function is called. Try to find the pattern of the problem if there is one and then look at the pattern as a big picture and find the point where it is different for the other users.
Add Pages to Vanilla with the Basic Pages app
OK, my hoster informed me that mySQL doesn't create Error logs (?!), just a slowqueries.log. Also he statet it isn't a system problem so that why Apache shouldn't play a case... hmpf.
I have no several instances open with almost all windows you can encounter as a user on the forum and wait for the error to happen. It's actually like fishing.
what sort of hosting package are you on?
grep is your friend.
I just had a private conversation with @Shadowdare about the same... i list my Specs below @x00.
Server: Intel® Core™ i3-2100, 2 x 3,1GHz, Hyper-Threading, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB SATA (RAID 1)
Database Size: 180 MB (optimized and repaired, i also clear "GDN_Activity" table manually regulary)
PageViews a day: 20.000
Visitors a day: 3.000
I guess i'm not running out of resources, but maybe too many calls to the Database (if to many people are writing posts or similar) maybe the problem?
If I may "intrude", I also saw the empty box appearing, from time to time, on a local installation of Vanilla 2.0.18.8. Practically no visitors, it's my development server. The box with the "X" appeared when I left a page open for several hours. If I remember correctly, it was the front page with a list of discussions. I suspected that it had something to do with the script that retrieves the popup messages, but I didn't investigate any further.
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@phreak first it would be good if you can get the whole error message. If you can paste it.
you can set
make sure the log file is writeable.
the x box thing is a minor issue, and can be fixed.
grep is your friend.
@businessdad: Interesting, i guess i know this behaviour as well. Not sure if this correlates with my above one as it happens to user while surfing... BUT... what if (mobile) browsers are standbying sites if people change to another app and they experience then on coming back. Meaning that browser functionality could also play a role in Javascript that is bundeld with SQL calls?
@x00: You mean i should have solved the issue before the forum grew big? That wouldn't be possible as i it came with upgrades and add-ons and as it's reproducable so easy and acts different in different browsers i don't know exactly when it came into place.
@phreak can you reread above I edited it.
grep is your friend.
@x00: Thanx, that looks like a good idea. For the path of the log.txt. I think i have to set my own in here and create the file log.txt first or will it work exactly like you wrote it?
to save time create the file and make it writeable. Use the absolute path to the file.
grep is your friend.
Thanx. File installed, waiting for bugs to get caught.
@x00: So far nothing was recorded in the last 2 hours (i guess with this amount of users it should have already wrote something to the file). The files has 777 but my user as creator and not wwwrun. Do you have experience if the wwwrun user is substantial that writing can occur?
New Screenshot, i experience it also on other forums. Other than stated above.
Holy crap! That's the the admin sign-up form after installation. Wonder what i'm doing wrong.
are you using any kind of caching like object caching?
grep is your friend.
Server-Side? I don't think so. Nothing i've set in place. But this also a common appearance of errors. CSS partly falls back to style.css i guess.