Board Problems: "General Error"

[elfismiles]

Getting this all the time now (including trying to upload screenshot below and post) ... often have to reload each page 2-3 times to get it to go away:

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Too many connections [1040]

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

rigint-mysql-error.PNG

[Wombaticus Rex]

The most curious aspect of our recent traffic boom is the distribution: although there is a consistent baseline of 200-400 "guest users" lurking about at all hours in recent weeks, there are never more than 50 of them here in General Discussion. Instead, you find 5-20 users sprinkled in every -- every -- subforum on the site.

Right now: 170 users on the forum, 20 in General Discussion.

1040 errors have been consistent even with 150+ users, I've gotten three so far this morning just answering a PM and coming here to post this.

I don't think any "angry former member" types have the competence or dedication for this. It might not be malicious; it might be software-based, an indexing bot that doesn't play fair by naming itself, or perhaps a text-based machine learning system using RI as training data.

Or, once again, we've gotten the attention of something we shouldn't have.

[Laodicean]

The most curious aspect of our recent traffic boom is the distribution: although there is a consistent baseline of 200-400 "guest users" lurking about at all hours in recent weeks, there are never more than 50 of them here in General Discussion. Instead, you find 5-20 users sprinkled in every -- every -- subforum on the site.

Or, once again, we've gotten the attention of something we shouldn't have.

[Elvis]

The error thing is being examined, at first glance it's a host problem, investigation underway.

(Remain calm, wash your hands a lot and keep working.)

[cptmarginal]

I saw someone mention that they were copying and pasting drafts elsewhere in order to protect them from potential error. There is a much simpler way to avoid losing your work: when you reach the General Error page after hitting submit on a post, hit the refresh button on your browser and confirm the re-submission of the form data.

[JackRiddler]

We're very slow (my fault!) but a more systematic approach is coming.

It varies greatly, doesn't it now?

Someone's pointed out that as an attack, this would be pretty incompetent. Poor coding somewhere on the host side is a distinct possibility. One possibility is traffic (or an attack) on a completely unrelated site on the same host, being served from the same server.

Meanwhile, it seems to have brought out missing old members. Hooray.

[Project Willow]

If I remember correctly, RI is hosted on a self build server? The software probably needs an update as does the php running on the server, and the mysqli version. An interim fix is to increase sql max_connections and make sure phpbb is session timing out correctly, wait_timeout.

Please look into setting up SSL! Logins should be encrypted.

[Laodicean]

A discord platform for this site would be most welcome.

https://discordapp.com/

PM anytime once it is up and running, please. Foundation-ed by Jeff would be the best.

[Gnomad]

Today I have not got any errors. Pages load promptly with no trouble.

[Grizzly]

I’m still getting the error, as I’m sure others are too...

[JackRiddler]

THE MADNESS CONTINUES!

THINGS ARE BEING TRIED!

WE HOPE SOMETHING WORKS!

Very likely, the board will soon be quarantined restricted to registered users only, i.e., you will have to be logged in to see it. But we hope that will be martial law lockdown forever temporary, and the problem will be solved soon after that.

(Fuck, this ain't funny. The big picture I mean. RI software sucking, relatively tolerable.)

[lucky]

Same error as before - have to hit the tab 3-4 times then i get in to the page wanted. I dont geddit..I am c/p ing this reply as I know it will take a few go's to load!

[Searcher08]

I did a search on the phpBB support forum and found this
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=916255&p=7387965#p7387965

If anyone has access to the hosting company - Rackspace please have a look

Code: Select all

Domain
rigorousintuition.ca

Hosting Provider

RackSpace (Learn more)

Host Provider URL

http://www.rackspace.com

IP Address

23.253.248.162

Name Servers

dns2.stabletransit.com

dns1.stabletransit.com

The host really surprised me. Rackspace is an extremely expensive "Corporate IT department" service.

[cptmarginal]

374 users browsing right now but only 30 in General Discussion. Makes very little sense. When the forum is very popular you will usually see one or two hundred people in GD. The numbers of people browsing the subforums right now are relatively normal - only two or three users looking at some of the defunct ones. Where are the hundreds of others at? Seems like a variety of DDOS to me (though I do remember a time in the past where the phpBB database needed to be rebuilt or something along those lines.)

[cptmarginal]

Very likely, the board will soon be quarantined restricted to registered users only, i.e., you will have to be logged in to see it. But we hope that will be martial law lockdown forever temporary, and the problem will be solved soon after that.

If the cause of this problem is bots of whatever kind then implementing a DDOS protection service like CloudFlare would solve it right away. Even if the board is restricted to registered users only that doesn't stop the login pages from getting hammered and causing the same overload.