Ventures Online = Database Errors?

[nwingate]

I moved my board to Ventures Online about a month ago... MAN, WHAT A MISTAKE!

My server (reseller plan) keeps going up and down.

Today, the server went donwn for about 5 mins... and after it came back up my vBulletin forum was down saying there was a database error. I logged into my admincp and after a few minutes the site came back up.

I check my email and had about 35 Database errors!

QUESTION????
Can a server going up and down cause a database error at my sight? Because ever since I moved to VO :mad: I've been getting them daily!

Thanks

[nwingate]

Heres an example of one of the vBulletin Database Errors I recieved in my email:

Database error in vBulletin :

Link-ID == false, connect failed
mysql error:

mysql error number: 0

Date: Wednesday 10th of March 2004 02:04:42 PM
Script: http://www.contractortalk.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1490
Referer:
IP Address: 64.68.92.195

[Floris]

If they are down and fixing or upgrading their network they will result in a reboot or whatever and then apache might be up but mysql is still getting started. At this point vbulletin can't connect and it will result with error 0; can't connect.

30 minutes later is a bit BIG late. It shouldn't take more then 5 minutes max. to reboot and restart services.

[nwingate]

I think thats what must have happened. Either way, I'm finding a new host.
I've only been with VO for about a month and the uptime/response on their servers is terrible.

I just signed up with http://www.kualo.com/reseller/
Hopefully there service is better

[Floris]

Never heard of them. But good luck!

[Martin]

Never heard of them. But good luck!
really?

[Floris]

Just checked their site, nope .. doesn't ring a bell.

[I, Brian]

I moved my board to Ventures Online about a month ago... MAN, WHAT A MISTAKE!

My server (reseller plan) keeps going up and down.

Today, the server went donwn for about 5 mins... and after it came back up my vBulletin forum was down saying there was a database error. I logged into my admincp and after a few minutes the site came back up.

I check my email and had about 35 Database errors!

QUESTION????
Can a server going up and down cause a database error at my sight? Because ever since I moved to VO :mad: I've been getting them daily!

ThanksI often have small but niggling problems such as this repeatedly happening with VO. With the database connection issue - with my own records the time down is usually very short, and large numbers of error reports are often bots trying to hit hard and fast and quickly. Hence you get a string of database connection errors, even when the connection is only down for minutes - even seconds.

Looks like similar happened to yourself - if I'm not mistaken that's a Google spider IP.

[express]

Kualo is a great company they have highly qualified personnel on site some of the best we have seen as it pretains to knowledge of a working system. I am sure you will be very happy with them.

[nwingate]

I'm moving my sites to them now... thanks for the referral though!

[Paul]

I was under the impression that this was obvious when first reading, but apparently only Brian really hit on it.

Ventures Online's shared "reseller" servers limit the number of maximum mysql connections available to your account at any one time. This is to ensure that there are plenty of resources for all of the other sites that reside on the particular server.

If the statistics on your contractortalk.com site are accurate, having 422 users online at the same time would very likely exceed your quota for mysql connections, causing the link errors you posted here. The connections will get throttled and cause a bottleneck, bringing down your site in the manner which you described.

While VO is a little more pricey than others, I have been a customer of theirs for well over two years and have been nothing but pleased at the level of support and professionalism demonstrated by their staff. My vBulletin installation could never run on their shared hosting environment, however. You need to look at a VPS account or dedicated server.

I'm sure all of this would have been explained within minutes of you contacting VO's helpdesk. You can find it at http://www.venturesonline.com/helpdesk/. I think it's grossly unfair to blame the provider.

[nwingate]

If the statistics on your contractortalk.com site are accurate, having 422 users online at the same time would very likely exceed your quota for mysql connections, causing the link errors you posted here.

422 users online at the same time... LOL, I wish! Try 2-3 users online at the same time.

That 422 users online was a bunch of spiders and I also had my cookie timeouts set REALLY high.

The nail in the coffin was that they do not provide AWSTATS.

[Curtis H.]

I think thats what must have happened. Either way, I'm finding a new host.
I've only been with VO for about a month and the uptime/response on their servers is terrible.

I just signed up with http://www.kualo.com/reseller/
Hopefully there service is better
I was with VO for about 1 month about one month ago. Was very unhappy with server (megaman.vosn.net) performance and uptime. I dropped them fast. Expected better.

You should be happy with Kualo from what I have read.

[poolking]

I was a VO customer for several months and not had a single problem with them. The only reason I moved is I gave up on running a forum for a while and also found somewhere cheaper, my only reason for leaving.

[okrogius]

AWStats doesn't come? Give me a break for crying out loud - not bloating everyone's webspace with some stats program which most won't end up using is only a positive thing, not a bad thing. You are more then free to install one if you wish, and there is nothing to stop you from doing so (well short of the fact then you won't have a topic to complain about and call a final nail in the coffin :rolleyes:).

As excellently pointed out 400+ concurrent users (it makes no difference if the web page is being requested by a bot or a user to the server) is way too much for a shared server. Even with a lenient time out cookie (which is a security risk of its own) there will still be plenty of users ismulatenosuly - and very possible to hit the max connections limit (which is somewhere around 60 I believe for virtuals). As fara s the post about server issues - while the shared servers do have occasional times when there are resource abusers on them who really need a better solution, those problems are solved rather quickly. Did you ever contact the helpdesk over your issues for instance? Overall though you'll find that servers are loaded just fine with a quite acceptable level for a shared platform. Obviously you won't find 0.1 load averages on a shared box.

Now about downtime and overall netowrk consistency, I would easily wager you'll have a hard time finding many providers which provide the level of support and uptime that VO does. Having been a VO customer for over a year I had zero significant downtimes (short of a reboot ocassionally, or a well in advance notified of maintenance at night both of which are neither anything uncommon or bad).

You shouldn't blame the provider when you have no reason to do so. While VO is by far not the cheapest, their support and uptime are very good.

[Regs]

You shouldn't blame the provider when you have no reason to do so. While VO is by far not the cheapest, their support and uptime are very good.You mean -was- very good.

~Regs.

[nwingate]

Their service wasn't bad but their uptime sucked!

[poolking]

Their service wasn't bad but their uptime sucked!
So really you should have chosen a plan more suited to the activity of your forum instead of bashing VO?

Did you ever check the server status pages at voinfo.com?

Its great just giving one side of the story.

[nwingate]

Look, the start of this thread was to ask why I was getting so many database errors ever since I moved to VO.
One of the problems I thought may have been causing this is that I noticed several times a day that my server was down/unreachable. I moved from a $10/mo shared hosting plan at Aplus.net where I had almost no downtime whatsoever!

Your comment that I should have chosen a plan more suited to the activity of my forum? What the hell does that mean?
At any given time I have about 4 people on my forum. If any host out there can't handle 4 people at a time they need to close shop.

[poolking]

Look, the start of this thread was to ask why I was getting so many database errors ever since I moved to VO.
One of the problems I thought may have been causing this is that I noticed several times a day that my server was down/unreachable. I moved from a $10/mo shared hosting plan at Aplus.net where I had almost no downtime whatsoever!

Your comment that I should have chosen a plan more suited to the activity of my forum? What the hell does that mean?
At any given time I have about 4 people on my forum. If any host out there can't handle 4 people at a time they need to close shop.
Have you ever thought that Ventures Online limit the amount of connections on a server to stop just one site hogging all of the resources?

Ventures Online are a big company and Jelsoft were and probably still hosted with them.

So why should they shut up shop just because 1 site may hogging a whole load of resources?

Have you tried finding out what other resellers are on your server to see if it is any of them causing the connection problems?

[nwingate]

It's not my job to find out whose hogging their resources, its theirs. They should be monitoring their servers and detecting that.

I started out on a server that was down more times than it was up.
I gave them a second chance and after they failed to provide acceptable uptime I left.

My goal in this thread was not to bash them but to ask a database question. Others can judge the company for themselves but I found myself holding my breath ever time I visited my site... wondering if it would be up or down.

[phenom]

I was with VO for about 1 month about one month ago. Was very unhappy with server (megaman.vosn.net) performance and uptime. I dropped them fast. Expected better.

You should be happy with Kualo from what I have read.
Yes, megaman was a turd for about a month or so, but since they discovered and moved the problem, it's been working quite well.

[phenom]

At any given time I have about 4 people on my forum. If any host out there can't handle 4 people at a time they need to close shop.You may only have 4 members, but how many guests do you have? Right now I see 26 people online at your site... 6 members and 20 guests.

[nwingate]

The truth is in the cookies ;)

I have no more than 4 people on my site at any given time (guests and members) ... not that this is a good thing!

[phenom]

are you talking about Contractor Talk? Because now, there's 34.

Here's a screenshot:

[nwingate]

yes, I am talking about www.contractortalk.com

I'll say it again... I HAVE MY COOKIE TIMEOUTS TURNED WAY UP!

It lists 34... but thats over the last few hours. There are currently 3 people online. One member (me) and 2 guests (probably you LOL)

People get excited and post more when they think a bunch of people are online. Believe me I've tested this and its true!

[phenom]

okay, I understand now, but wouldn't those guests, despite having long cookie timeouts, still be occupying a connection?