Errors...

[comingbackdown]

vBulletin isn't cheap, as I hear it. phpBB may be the bomb (and I mean that in a bad way) but the price is right.

The thing about logging 500 errors is it won't do you any good. The PHP is doing its job as best it can. Something's holding it back. The only way to be sure is to put tracers into the code to report its progress and see where it jams. And on a fully working and busy site like, say, this one, that's gonna cause more problems than it solves.

Can't think of a good reason for what's going wrong if SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST comes up empty, except for my previous Bad Neighbour theory.

A full 500 error log should show the PHP file that caused the error, and the error that the PHP process threw (to be more exact, PHP4 doesn't really 'throw' errors, but you get the idea), much like running PHP files with error reporting on, or on a local machine, except it wont display possible security risks or exploits to the public.

Writing tracers for someone else's software thats thousands of lines of code would be a nightmare. I'd rather let the webserver log do it's job.

phpBB is free for personal use I think. At least, for me it is. vB is like $179-200 for personal use and more for commercial. Although, there are ways to get vB for free.... I'm not too familiar with php/mySQL. I'm more of a CGI/Perl guy.

PHPBB is free no matter what you use it for.

Maybe we can try SMF, it's free and I think it's better for high load boards. We can also try PHPBB 3, however I'm seeing HUGE load times on my server compared to IPB (pay for board, $150).

phpBB is free for personal use I think. At least, for me it is. vB is like $179-200 for personal use and more for commercial. Although, there are ways to get vB for free.... I'm not too familiar with php/mySQL. I'm more of a CGI/Perl guy.

CGI/Perl! This isn't the 90's anymore buddy!

hehehe just kidding

Alas I want to kind of learn CGI/Perl, it's more powerful and efficient than PHP apparently. However writing software and trying to distribute it and make it flexible and modular in a language almost no one uses is kind of difficult.

According to my sister's boyfriend, and many other coders, the Perl syntax is a Godzilla-sized beast when you're learning it.

[StrangeWill]

vBulletin isn't cheap, as I hear it. phpBB may be the bomb (and I mean that in a bad way) but the price is right.

The thing about logging 500 errors is it won't do you any good. The PHP is doing its job as best it can. Something's holding it back. The only way to be sure is to put tracers into the code to report its progress and see where it jams. And on a fully working and busy site like, say, this one, that's gonna cause more problems than it solves.

Can't think of a good reason for what's going wrong if SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST comes up empty, except for my previous Bad Neighbour theory.

A full 500 error log should show the PHP file that caused the error, and the error that the PHP process threw (to be more exact, PHP4 doesn't really 'throw' errors, but you get the idea), much like running PHP files with error reporting on, or on a local machine, except it wont display possible security risks or exploits to the public.

Writing tracers for someone else's software thats thousands of lines of code would be a nightmare. I'd rather let the webserver log do it's job.

phpBB is free for personal use I think. At least, for me it is. vB is like $179-200 for personal use and more for commercial. Although, there are ways to get vB for free.... I'm not too familiar with php/mySQL. I'm more of a CGI/Perl guy.

PHPBB is free no matter what you use it for.

Maybe we can try SMF, it's free and I think it's better for high load boards. We can also try PHPBB 3, however I'm seeing HUGE load times on my server compared to IPB (pay for board, $150).

CGI/Perl! This isn't the 90's anymore buddy!

hehehe just kidding

Alas I want to kind of learn CGI/Perl, it's more powerful and efficient than PHP apparently. However writing software and trying to distribute it and make it flexible and modular in a language almost no one uses is kind of difficult.

According to my sister's boyfriend, and many other coders, the Perl syntax is a Godzilla-sized beast when you're learning it.

I worked with it a very tiny bit back when I was like 13, when I had a free host I used it for keeping track of visitors and stuff, and I had to tweak a few things, but other than that I haven't really touched it.

On the other hand, I know like 8 languages, so I figured even if Perl is nasty and mean, it's just another language.

[DeHackEd]

A full 500 error log should show the PHP file that caused the error, and the error that the PHP process threw (to be more exact, PHP4 doesn't really 'throw' errors, but you get the idea), much like running PHP files with error reporting on, or on a local machine, except it wont display possible security risks or exploits to the public.

Actually, no. A 500 error is caused by the PHP file not responding in time before the web server (Apache, IIS, whatever) gives up. The only "error message" that could result in something like this is the aftermath of a flat out crash, and that's a whole other bag of worms (ie. no PHP script should crash PHP). Plus a crash would probably happen quickly. 500 errors take a long time to show up, adding fuel to the timeout theory. Web service waits on PHP, PHP waits on something currently unknown, web service gives up.

In other words, there's no way you're going to get a log report of why a 500 happened from the point of view of PHP.

Edit: fix broken formatting

[StrangeWill]

Actually, no. A 500 error is caused by the PHP file not responding in time before the web server (Apache, IIS, whatever) gives up. The only "error message" that could result in something like this is the aftermath of a flat out crash, and that's a whole other bag of worms (ie. no PHP script should crash PHP). Plus a crash would probably happen quickly. 500 errors take a long time to show up, adding fuel to the timeout theory. Web service waits on PHP, PHP waits on something currently unknown, web service gives up.

In other words, there's no way you're going to get a log report of why a 500 happened from the point of view of PHP.

It doesn't take 300 seconds for a web server to throw a 500 error, a 500 error is an internal server error:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

Examples:
http://www.guistyles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2799
PHP getting a 500 error reading a file it doesn't have access to

http://drupal.org/node/152238
PHP throwing a 500 error due to high memory usage (I get this problem uploading images < ~1000pxx1000px to the GD library (PHP library) which causes a huge memory issue)

http://support.nusphere.com/viewtopic.php?t=3545
Apparently PHP 5.2.2 is unstable enough on it's own to cause your web server to throw a 500 error

http://forum.mamboserver.com/showthread.php?t=15227
Script header issues defined by PHP throw 500 errors (see this one shows error logs on file and the error, it shows publicly, you should be able to log that instead)

http://drupal.org/node/8047
Further proof that 500 errors are able to log the PHP error, alas 1&1 doesn't give me that (my host), but most hosts do.

If a PHP script fires off an error (not a notice) that will cause it to abort processing, it can cause the web server to throw a 500 error, whether it's an error reading a file, memory access problems or MySQL not connecting. Under default settings PHP will display the error on the page, however this is a huge security risk therefore 99.9% of hosts will throw up the 500 Internal Server Error, being as the PHP, a piece of internal server software which main purpose is to load up a page, has thrown an error that cannot be recovered from.


500 errors can be instant:
http://demo.wolframstudios.com/500/test.php

My page's timeout is 300 seconds, yet I'm creating a file whose memory requirements is outside my allowed range for the PHP engine to take up, hence the PHP engine chokes and stops processing, my server throws a 500 error.



They wont catch syntax errors, they wont catch errors that do not halt the processing of a PHP page, however if a PHP page is throwing 500 errors you can usually use 500 error logs to debug it, and bet that it's a PHP related error.

On 1&1 I have to use this lame script debugger where I put in the details of the 500 error script location and it barely gives me any useful information. Don't get 1&1 hosting if you need any tech support.


Edit:
500 error reporting software from 1and1:


Isn't worth shit, but as you can see it's throwing a permission denied error (due to memory overflow), this is one of the shittiest 500 error reporting debuggers available, but it does work.


StandardShifter should be able to call his host, and his host SHOULD be logging the 500 errors, and if not should be able to run him through what needs to be done to turn them on.

[Standardshifter]

Errors are being caused by the creaky forum sofware being hosted in a taxed shared host environement, with a dose of bots running wild.

I do look at realtime mem use when folks post about issues, and the typical php files are to blame.

Both are being updated (new version of forum with much better caching scheme) and VPS environment with realtime switching of guaranteed ram/CPU time. VPS is happening first, in a matter of days.

[black94boost]

!!!!!!! I just got spammed with 500 Internal Server Errors from my own website. It's really annoying, however, I don't find the 500 Errors on here annoying....

[aaron_rx8]

+1 strangewill - I'm glad to see someone nerded it up and explained the 500 error thing.

Another interesting thing: Internet Explorer 6 sometimes will mis-interpret a malformed header and give it a 403, 404, or 503 error (I learned this after 5 years as an ISP tech - no NOT for a place like AOL mind you...)

At any rate, if SS was using DreamHost - I totally can understand the 500 errors... DH has had some issues lately that have been causing issues - especially database issues I've noticed (I think it had to do with an internal routing issue - they were broadcasting out of their own data center like .... well like bad hosters - for their "remote" mysql servers... *sigh*).

At any rate, my experience is that PHPBB will handle a large amount of traffic - I'm sure alot more than the standard ss.com visitor load - which I don't think that software is to blame.

One other aside - I can't help it - Perl/CGI/PHP - etc... haha @ the 90's... note slashdot's technology however . (yeh. I do perl and PHP...)

-aaron

[StrangeWill]

At any rate, my experience is that PHPBB will handle a large amount of traffic - I'm sure alot more than the standard ss.com visitor load - which I don't think that software is to blame.

You forget however, Yahoo bots are effectively a DDoS attack on servers due to like 100 or more bots crawling a site at once.

[aaron_rx8]

I know googlebot will take a delay specified as either a meta tag or a robots.txt directive... I think yahoo will too... I just can't think of it off the top of my head... Perhaps a search of 'teh googl' will help... *lazy me*

[NonChalant]

bots shouldn't be a problem if theres a decent robots.txt file.

all web crawlers that follow standards have to obey the directives in a robot.txt file.

oh, and theres no way a yahoo search bot is like a DDoS attack on a server. it's just like a regular person visiting the site. If that were true then every server out there would be under "attack."

[StrangeWill]

bots shouldn't be a problem if theres a decent robots.txt file.

all web crawlers that follow standards have to obey the directives in a robot.txt file.

oh, and theres no way a yahoo search bot is like a DDoS attack on a server. it's just like a regular person visiting the site. If that were true then every server out there would be under "attack."

http://ekstreme.com/thingsofsorts/web-p ... ts-part-ii
http://www.jensense.com/archives/2006/0 ... ch_ma.html
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum11/2553.htm
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/2448.htm

It's a common problem that I've myself experienced first hand where 100 requests at a time are coming from Yahoo (as in 100 separate bots crawling my website), apparently Yahoo said it was a bug that they fixed, but some people are still complaining about it.

While it isn't a TRUE DDoS attack, most lower grade servers got buried by yahoo bots during the highpoint of this issue.


I had 215 bots, most of them yahoo (at least 200) at once on my site.

[Standardshifter]

GoogleBot ignores the hacked delayed crawl via robots.txt method of slowing bots down, fairly common knowledge. Any non-content files are blocked via robots.txt. Might have changed recently, I don't know.

Even using webmaster tools on the googlebot site to turn down crawl rate to slow, standardshift was still getting hit with over 3K of googlebot hits alone a day for indexing, and that's after tweaking session ids. Had to send some logs to google showing that googleboat was hitting the site hard, and it finally got throttled back.

Also plenty of rogue spiders/bots out there. There were a couple of experimental ones I tracked down that were hitting standardshift. Their sites actually said it is an experimental bot and that it shouldn't cause trouble, but they were chewing through the site like a noob standardshifter behind the wheel of a dual stick shift 18-wheeler.

[Leedeth]

What's going on? The forums have been down for 2 hours today. And before that it has intermittent hiccups.

[Mike_AR]

What's going on? The forums have been down for 2 hours today. And before that it has intermittent hiccups.

The site has been going extremely slow for me too. It takes several minutes to even post or view threads.

[Johnf514]

We're working on it - some problems in the morning today. Stay tuned.