After Upgrade (4.2.3 PL2), PMs stopped working

[JonUrban]

I *finally* did the last patch upgrade to get my forum current on 4.2.3 PL2 and now users are reporting that PMs are not working. They are getting a browser error 503 - Service Unavailable.
When I send a PM I do not get the error, but the PM does not go through.

Is there a permissions problem? I had no errors when I ran the upgrade. Everything else seems to be running fine.

I did go to the CP and did the Repair/Optimize on the 'pm', 'pmreceipt', and 'pmtext' tables, but that did not do anything.

Any ideas?

[Paul M]

Have a look in the apache error logs.

The patches dont have anything to do with PM's as far as I can remember.

It is possible for vB4 to return HTTP 503 code, but its very unusual.
It can happen if it hits an database error and something has already sent some http headers (another error, possibly php) before the database error can sent to the browser.

[JonUrban]

Thanks Paul

I logged in as a normal user (non-admin) and when I create a PM and press SEND, I get this in the browser address bar

WEBADDRESS /forums/private.php?do=insertpm&pmid=

and the 503 "Service Unavailable" error in the browser body.

I went to my web site CPanel and looked at the error log, and all I get is this:

2016-09-05 14:25:49.324 [INFO] [xx.xxx.xxx.xxx:52931] File not found [/home/xxxxxx/public_html/503.shtml]


I don't really know any other place to look

[JonUrban]

One more thing. If I login as me (admin), the PM SEND procedure appears to work and I do not get the 503 error. However, if I look at "Sent Items" the PM is not there.

[JonUrban]

Here's one more clue:

I sent myself a PM (as admin). It showed that I received 2 PM's, both the same, of the one I sent to myself, and it showed 2 PM's as sent. But I only sent it once.

I also got 2 emails indicating I received the 2 PMs with the verbiage I sent in the one that turned into two

This is very strange

[JonUrban]

OK - One other thing I just noticed. I created a new post and pasted a web link in it, the whole deal with the http: and all, and when I saved the post, the link was not automatically made into a live link. Just a text string.

I had to go back, highlight the link, then used the LINK icon to add the link to it.

That's not the way it used to work. Could this be related to the PM issue?

[Mark.B]

None of this stuff is even touched by the patch. I think you have something else going on here.
I would ask your host why the server is returning 503 errors.

[JonUrban]

RESOLUTION: Thanks Paul and Mark. You were right, it had nothing to do with the upgrade patch. I put a ticket in with the host company (urljet) and they checked it all out and told me that:

"eaccelerator was enabled in your cpanel setting, Development is pretty much at a standstill on that module. I moved you to opcache for a chasing module and its back to sending."

I am not sure exactly what that means, and I have no clue how it got turned on.

Anyway, I post this here in case this happens to some other forum admin and the search engine brings them here.

Again, thanks to Paul and Mark for trying to help.

[Paul M]

eaccelerator was an old php caching system that stopped being developed a long time ago, and was known (unsurprisingly) for breaking vBulletin if enabled.

opcache is the latest system, developed by zend I think.