Again. Ever since the upgrade from version 2.x.x to version 3 of the phpBB software (I believe those are the version numbers, not 100% sure as I was not involved in the upgrade, I am just a mod there...) we have had a couple of fairly long service disruptions, last week we were down for about 3 days and it has now been several hours of blackout again today. Martin, since you are obviously knowledgeable about this BB software although yours looks far more "customized" than the one in use at rr.net, do you think these outages are coincidental - server related perhaps - or due to possible bugs in the new software?

The error message is the same each time if you try to connect to http://rangerovers.net/forum/index.php (quoting it below in case the site goes back on line):

Quote:

General Error

SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

User ranger4_xmb1 already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

These outages seem to "start" overnight here in the US - surely when the number of hits is very low - so I don't think the real cause for these crashes would be too many visitors as the message above appears to imply, but I am far from being an expert. Just trying to help out the owner of rr.net in avoiding these outages in the future. Is rrsport.co.uk - as well as its "sister" web sites - running on the new forum software platform? Did you experience similar issues after upgrading? Any ideas or feedback would be appreciated, thanks a lot. 

Hi Umberto,

RRSPORT (and the other sites) are still running phpBB version 2, mainly because I've customised it so much it's not simply a case of upgrading to a new version as they did on Rangerovers.net

Sounds like the added complexity of phpBB might causing an overload of the MySQL server. Not sure why it's related to being overnight, but it might be a backup script of some kind causing the database to fall over. Like this site? Buy some RRSPORT goodies to show your support!

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Martin is spot on - its an sql problem - I had the same issue with mytreg.com and mytiguan.com when I upgraded to phpbb 3.0

Thanks Martin, I'll pass this along to John. I'll hang out with you guys until they figure it out, hope you don't mind... I suddenly have all this free time in my hands, I don't know what to do with myself! 

Kaine wrote:

Martin is spot on - its an sql problem - I had the same issue with mytreg.com and mytiguan.com when I upgraded to phpbb 3.0

just checked my emails with my server host - he had to change the mysql config to 'allow persistant connections'

Martin - to be honest I dont fully know what Richy did, but I will ask him

Thanks Kaine, I'll be watching this thread in case you get any more info from your tech guy. So, the settings were changed from "Disallow" to "Allow" persistent connections? 

yep - it seems some hosts default their settings to disallow persistant connections for security and bandwidth issues. I believe its a one line item in server mysql config files, but I'm not 100% sure

It could be this isn't actually an issue in MySQL, but more an issue in the PHP database connection logic. Theory says create a connection to the db, operate across it, close it and thus release resources back to the pool. If the PHP MySQL libraries or the code in phpBB that calls them isn't managing the connections properly, the database resources simply get chewed up and never released. I'm not a MySQL expert but in application development generally, persistent connections are normally set for performance reasons (i.e. to increase performance of apps that have high, constant database use where the creation of connections has an impact on response) but this brings with it it's own set of caveats... so only allow them if you're aware of the consequences  

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shmoogle wrote:

It could be this isn't actually an issue in MySQL, but more an issue in the PHP database connection logic. Theory says create a connection to the db, operate across it, close it and thus release resources back to the pool. If the PHP MySQL libraries or the code in phpBB that calls them isn't managing the connections properly, the database resources simply get chewed up and never released. I'm not a MySQL expert but in application development generally, persistent connections are normally set for performance reasons (i.e. to increase performance of apps that have high, constant database use where the creation of connections has an impact on response) but this brings with it it's own set of caveats... so only allow them if you're aware of the consequences

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I was browsing the phpbb 3.0 support forum last night. There are tons of similar instances reported, apparently the server host does indeed need to get involved and make changes into its settings to "play nice" with the new bb version. Basically, phpbb2 uses one connection, over and over again. phpbb3 makes a connection, and when the pages finish loading (sent to browser of user) it closes the connection. That's where the problem starts.

Bottom line is, rr.net is still down. I think you are being wise to stick to v.2, Martin... Thank you all for your feedback.