VBulletin crashing entire virtual server!

[LCD_Angel]

url: http://www.paintballforum.com (taken down by host)

host: VenturesOnline.com

PHP Version 4.2.3 MySQL Version 3.23.54 Perl Version 5.006001

VBulletin 2.2.9

Operating System Linux Apache Version 1.3.27 (Unix

My forum was taken down by my webhost after it started "gobbling" up all the server resources.

Here is what they told me

" Your forum's misc.php pinned the shared server and disrupted service on the system, so your account had to be disabled.

This is all I know at this point... any ideas why? It is hosted by VENTURESONLINE.com

[Steve Machol]

How busy were your forums, i.e., how many people did your have online at one time - both on average and at peak?

Did you have any hacks installed - particularly to misc.php?

[LCD_Angel]

Average, probably 25 - 30... peak hours around 50 - 60. I dont think that the number of connections is the issue. I am trying to get more information from VenturesOnline support on the matter. They pointed to the misc.php file causing some sort of problems with the server.

Originally posted by Steve Machol
How busy were your forums, i.e., how many people did your have online at one time - both on average and at peak?

Did you have any hacks installed - particularly to misc.php?

[LCD_Angel]

Originally posted by LCD_Angel
Average, probably 25 - 30... peak hours around 50 - 60. I dont think that the number of connections is the issue. I am trying to get more information from VenturesOnline support on the matter. They pointed to the misc.php file causing some sort of problems with the server.

No hacks at all, the board is purely stock except for the VBulletin logo is changed.

[LCD_Angel]

Here is what venturesonline support said abou the issue:

You are allowed 45 simultaneous connections to MySql on your account. I do not see any evidence that that was a problem (the number of connections or failure to connect).

I don't think that there is generally anything "wrong" or "bad" about vbullettin's software running on our servers, either this was an unusual case / specific bug or your site is indeed too busy. We have all kinds of people using it without specific issues. However, any forum software (including this brand) is fairly resource intensive, busy forums normally end up having to move to VPS or Dedicated solutions.

Background on the issue - one of your processes was using 60% of the cpu time all by itself for a period of at least 30 minutes. All sites and email on the system became nearly non-funcitonal. We don't like to suspend people, we only do it when we must.

.........

60% of resources...and probably less than 45 connections.. is that normal? Or is there a bug / other issue causing so much cpy usage? Keep in mind I probably had anywhere from 40 - 70 users online at the time.


Thanks again,

Mark

[Steve Machol]

Could you have had a particularly large thread with lots of people subscribed to it? Ask VO if this was a mail server issue.

I can't imagine anything in misc.php causing this kind of a problem. Maybe one of the Devs will have a better idear.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by Steve Machol
Could you have had a particularly large thread with lots of people subscribed to it? Ask VO if this was a mail server issue.

I can't imagine anything in misc.php causing this kind of a problem. Maybe one of the Devs will have a better idear.

Make sure that persistant connections are turned off in your config.php. Ventures Online doesn't allow them.

[Steve Machol]

Originally posted by Wayne Luke
Make sure that persistant connections are turned off in your config.php. Ventures Online doesn't allow them.

To do this, edit config.php to this:

// use persistant connections to the database
// 0 = don't use
// 1 = use
$usepconnect = 0; 

[LCD_Angel]

Persistent connections was zero.

VO support notes this

.........

"Like I (Craig from VenturesOnline) mentioned in the last answer, there are really two problems.

1. Your site is really busy for a virtual, already the usage is quite high for 2 days. This no doubt contributes to #2 below but it is not the whole story:
2. Something happened which caused a particular php script to go mad on the processor "

..........

As I said, he referred to the misc.php script.

Would you guys want to log onto my acount and check it over... I really dont' know why this happened, but something is very wrong with some php file on the server.

[Steve Machol]

Fill out a support ticket at:

http://www.vbulletin.com/members/support_form.php

Be sure to include the login info to your Admin CP and FTP.

[LCD_Angel]

I send the info to the help desk. Go ahead and do anything you want to the account on the server... VB is the ONLY thing on it besides one index.html file that redirects to the forums. Please feel free to review / add to my HELPDESK ticket with venturesonline support as well. I am sure both you and I will be very interested in learining what is causing the script to crash the server.

Thank again Steve and Wayne,

Mark

[fury]

Originally posted by LCD_Angel
I send the info to the help desk. Go ahead and do anything you want to the account on the server... VB is the ONLY thing on it besides one index.html file that redirects to the forums. Please feel free to review / add to my HELPDESK ticket with venturesonline support as well. I am sure both you and I will be very interested in learining what is causing the script to crash the server.

Thank again Steve and Wayne,

Mark

misc.php contains the code for the "Who Posted" function (when you click on the amount of replies on any thread, you get a popup window detailing who posted)

From my experience, it is relatively power hungry (it calls for a count of all posts made in the thread, grouped by user id, then it's joined to the user table to get the username info. That's basically making x * y amount of calculations where x is the amount of posts in the thread and y is the amount of users)

If I were you I'd disable it. Edit the forumdisplaybit template and change this

<td bgcolor="{firstaltcolor}"><normalfont><a href="javascript:who($thread[threadid])">$thread[replycount]</a></normalfont></td>

(note that the board is showing an extra space between java and script... remove this space when putting it into the search box in that template page.)

to this

<td bgcolor="{firstaltcolor}"><normalfont>$thread[replycount]</normalfont></td>

[nuno]

hmm, fury, i think the who posted code only gets loaded when you click the javascript:who() link, and not when forumdisplay is loaded.

[LCD_Angel]

Hey.... look at this guys post. It looks almost IDENTICAL to my problem... he just upgraded to PHP 4.3. His forum is almost the exact same size.

I have just over 5,000 members... around 150 - 200,000 posts...

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=62664

Could it be a problem with VB 2.2.9 and PHP 4.3?

[LCD_Angel]

Originally posted by Steve Machol
Could you have had a particularly large thread with lots of people subscribed to it? Ask VO if this was a mail server issue.

I can't imagine anything in misc.php causing this kind of a problem. Maybe one of the Devs will have a better idear.

THis just in from Vo support.

"two small things:

You were not using persistent connections, and the number of connections was not an issue.

There were no mail server issues that we know of. "


I think he is pretty well narrowing it down to the misc.php