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Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 9:46 amby 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
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 12:07 pmby Wombaticus Rex
Wombaticus Rex » Wed Mar 11, 2020 1:13 pm wrote: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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 5:33 pmby Laodicean
Wombaticus Rex » Sat Mar 14, 2020 5:07 pm wrote:Wombaticus Rex » Wed Mar 11, 2020 1:13 pm wrote: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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 6:41 pmby 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.)
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:16 amby 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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:58 amby 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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 2:43 amby 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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:03 pmby 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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Tue Mar 17, 2020 4:12 pmby Gnomad
Today I have not got any errors. Pages load promptly with no trouble.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Tue Mar 17, 2020 6:06 pmby Grizzly
I’m still getting the error, as I’m sure others are too...
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Wed Mar 18, 2020 12:25 amby 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.)
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Wed Mar 18, 2020 6:26 amby 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!
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Wed Mar 18, 2020 7:22 amby 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#p7387965If 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.
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:39 amby 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.)
Re: Board Problems: "General Error"
Posted:
Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:44 amby cptmarginal
JackRiddler » Wed Mar 18, 2020 12:25 am wrote: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.