MySQL server errors

[annc]

Suddenly, in the past few days, I have started to receive repetitions of several MySQL errors:

The three errors are:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT IGNORE INTO subscribethread (userid, threadid, emailupdate, folderid, canview)
VALUES (1832, 5604, 1, 0, 1);

MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
Error Number : 2006

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.0:

Invalid SQL:

INSERT INTO cronlog
(varname, dateline, description, type)
VALUES
('birthday',
1239077032,
'Toowoomba Show Dressage, Jan, Greenacres',
1);

MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
Error Number : 2006

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.0:

Invalid SQL:

SELECT text, languageid, special
FROM phrase AS phrase
LEFT JOIN phrasetype USING (fieldname)
WHERE phrase.fieldname = 'frontredirect'
AND varname = 'postthanks' AND languageid IN (-1, 0, 1);

MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
Error Number : 2006


And now this evening, when trying to look at Who's Online, I got this error:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

My hosting company thinks there's something wrong with my code, but I haven't touched anything and the server I'm on did crash spectacularly about six months ago. I've asked to be moved to a new server, but just in case there's something I need to fix, I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone could offer some advice.

Thanks.

Ann

[bigwater]

This is most likely a memory issue. There are numerous settings in the MySQL config file that control how much memory is allocated for various functions such as read and write buffers, sorting buffers, caching, etc. Most of these are on a per connection basis, so as your number of connections increase, your memory can be exhausted, and your MySQL server will "go away".

Not knowing your setup, it's hard to make recommendations, but scan your config file and if you see limits on anything that are above 2MB, experiment with setting them back down to 2MB. Remember, if you've got read, write and cache buffers set at 4MB each, 100 concurrent users would be using 12MB each, or 1.2GB of memory would be needed. Cutting those buffer sizes in half would cut your memory requirements in half as well.

[annc]

This is most likely a memory issue. There are numerous settings in the MySQL config file that control how much memory is allocated for various functions such as read and write buffers, sorting buffers, caching, etc. Most of these are on a per connection basis, so as your number of connections increase, your memory can be exhausted, and your MySQL server will "go away".

Not knowing your setup, it's hard to make recommendations, but scan your config file and if you see limits on anything that are above 2MB, experiment with setting them back down to 2MB. Remember, if you've got read, write and cache buffers set at 4MB each, 100 concurrent users would be using 12MB each, or 1.2GB of memory would be needed. Cutting those buffer sizes in half would cut your memory requirements in half as well.

Thanks for trhe fast response.

I haven't changed anything in the config file other than the standard settings for server address, admin access etc. Access hasn't increased recently, so there should be no extra demand on the server. And I've changed nothing at all recently.

Is it possible that the memory problems could be on the server?

[bigwater]

Certainly it could be if you are on a shared host. The server only has so much memory in it, so the availability of memory will be affected by other customer's usage. Just because your memory usage hasn't increased doesn't mean that new customers haven't been added or other customers haven't had traffic increases... in other words, the server may be over sold.

You've already asked to be moved to another server. That hasn't worked. Maybe it's time to consider a new host. Maybe even a dedicated server or VPS... with those at least you know where your bottlenecks are.

[annc]

Certainly it could be if you are on a shared host. The server only has so much memory in it, so the availability of memory will be affected by other customer's usage. Just because your memory usage hasn't increased doesn't mean that new customers haven't been added or other customers haven't had traffic increases... in other words, the server may be over sold.

You've already asked to be moved to another server. That hasn't worked. Maybe it's time to consider a new host. Maybe even a dedicated server or VPS... with those at least you know where your bottlenecks are.

I'm with United Hosting, who say they don't do this, and certainly I've been very happy with them. I've asked to be moved to another server, but they're saying they have to wait for someone senior to make the decision.

I'll do a myipneighbors to see what's happening on the server.

Thanks.