Still on Step 1 after 8 hours

[Don Black]

I decided to upgrade from 3.5.4 to 3.6 last night, thinking it would take about thirty minutes like previous upgrades.

I have 2.8 million posts, and, after over eight hours, it's still on Step 1) Large table alterations (1/2).

Looking at the temp files in the mysql directory, it's apparently building a very large .MYI file. Sorted by size:

2933336492 Aug 15 01:10 post.MYD
2931608612 Aug 15 01:14 #sql-3ffe_11015.MYD
2900915200 Aug 15 10:00 #sql-3ffe_11015.MYI
2747514880 Aug 15 10:00 #sql-3ffe_11015.TMD
2029771776 Aug 15 01:10 post.MYI

This is considerably larger than the original post.MYI file. Is this normal, or is mysql just spinning out of control?

Unless something happens soon, I'll abort the installation and revert to 3.5.5. Then wait until I can upgrade the current dual Xeon 6GB 5x scsi server to something faster.

[Colin F]

The first step adds an 'infraction' field to the post table and a 'deletedcount' field to the thread table.
With that many posts it's possible that it takes a while.
Check in phpMyAdmin if these two fields have been added. If so, continue to step 2 by editing the URL.

Be advised that step 2 will also run big queries though...

[Don Black]

Neither table has those fields, nor have they been updated since I started the installation over ten hours ago. The temp files keep getting bigger and bigger, though, with the temp .MYI file now larger the the post.MYD file.

These are the only active mysql processes:

| 69653 | sf2 | localhost | sf2_vbulletin | Query | 33958 | Repair with keycache | ALTER TABLE post
ADD infraction SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL |
| 77052 | sf2 | localhost | sf2_vbulletin | Query | 6992 | Locked | ALTER TABLE post
ADD infraction SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL |

I'll probably cut my losses shortly, particularly since other posters have said step 2 takes the longest.

[Colin F]

Those are the two queries... Seeing as it's still running would indicate that it does take that long. Not sure what you could do to speed it up though, so if you restarted later you'd have just as long again.

[Don Black]

Step 1 finished, creating a 3.1 GB post.MYI file for a 2.9 GB post.MDB.

I'm reluctantly going ahead with Step 2, since the database is now broke as far as 3.5.5 is concerned. Had I known it would take this long, I'd have done this on a Saturday, rather than Monday, the busiest day of the week.

[Don Black]

It just finished, after 21 hours. Despite regular DoS/DDoS attacks, that's the most downtime I've seen since a server crash three years ago. And it was self-inflicted. Hope it's worth it.

I actually feel lucky. I figured "Step 2" would add another gigabyte to the post.MYI file, like Step 1 did, which would have taken another three or four hours.

Uncorking bottle...

[eoc_Jason]

Before doing DB changes like that, it's probably best to bump up the 'key_buffer' to as much as you can reasonably allocate to help speed up the upgrade.

[Don Black]

Before doing DB changes like that, it's probably best to bump up the 'key_buffer' to as much as you can reasonably allocate to help speed up the upgrade.

Yes, I read something about that in another thread after I'd started the upgrade. I could have changed that setting between Step 1 and 2, though, had I been thinking.

There really needs to be more documentation about this, seeing's how many of us just jump in, assuming this would be just another upgrade, without first researching all the threads here.

On the positive side, everybody likes the new features. My users usually complain whenever I make any changes.

[Reeve of Shinra]

There really needs to be more documentation about this, seeing's how many of us just jump in, assuming this would be just another upgrade, without first researching all the threads here.

Same boat... I had no idea that the Steps 1 & 2 would take so long... it took about 45 minutes for step 1 and im working through step 2. If I had known it would take so long, I would've planned this for a different day.