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#1 2020-08-14 03:27:52

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,058
Website

Forum server timing out

this happens more frequently again: 504 Gateway Time-out. Timing – for me – is always about the same, end of morning)

(today around ~11:45 AM JST)


Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
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#2 2020-08-14 03:39:57

bici
Member
From: vancouver
Registered: 2004-02-24
Posts: 2,071
Website Mastodon

Re: Forum server timing out

i experienced that 504 about an hour ago…. 19:30 PST


…. texted postive

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#3 2020-08-16 12:41:27

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,134
GitHub

Re: Forum server timing out

Thanks for the report – I’ll check what’s going on.

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#4 2020-08-16 13:01:08

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,134
GitHub

Re: Forum server timing out

OK, I think this is now fixed. Please let me know if it keeps happening.

Background
There’re two backup jobs for the forum database and files, one runs hourly, the other runs daily. The hourly run uses gzip compression and has an archive of 24 hours, the daily job uses xz compression and has an archive of 14 days.

Our database is ~8,000,000 rows and ~450MB uncompressed. By nature, it grows gradually since we don’t cull old stuff very often.

Using gzip compress, a database backup uses 72MB of drive space and takes less than 1 minute to complete. If you use xz compression, the same database will use less drive space: currently 50MB. However, xz compressions takes much more time (about 4 minutes), and it’s pegging the PHP memory limit in the process, which is not ideal if you’re phiw13 since the forum takes a short, unplanned pre-lunch vacation every day. Whoops.

Solution: daily backup is now gzip-flavour compression, which should resolve the issue.

Thank you for your patience.

Last edited by gaekwad (2020-08-16 13:02:31)

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#5 2020-08-17 00:39:47

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,058
Website

Re: Forum server timing out

which is not ideal if you’re phiw13 since the forum takes a short, unplanned pre-lunch vacation every day.

OK, we will all blame this on the summer heat1 which requires changes to my schedules and (daily) routines a little.

Thanks for looking at this problem.

1 daily midday temperatures are heading for an average of 34~35º over the next month, with 60%+ humidity.


Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern

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#6 2020-08-17 08:57:39

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,134
GitHub

Re: Forum server timing out

phiw13 wrote #325401:

Thanks for looking at this problem.

Welcome. Was your Monday late morning a little less 504-ish?

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#7 2020-08-17 09:04:30

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,134
GitHub

Re: Forum server timing out

gaekwad wrote #325386:

However, xz compressions takes much more time (about 4 minutes), and it’s pegging the PHP memory limit in the process, […].

Quoting myself for additional info for any website nerds reading – there are multiple PHP instances on our server because the current fluxBB doesn’t run sanely on PHP 7.4, whereas everything else we run does. There’s a PHP 7.3 instance for the forum, and PHP 7.4 for everything else. When PHP 8.0 lands, we’ll test things for compliance and likely migrate all the compatible stuff to it. When the next fluxBB is released, there’re changes already made to make it PHP 7.4-friendly, so we’ll likely bump everything up a version: forum to PHP 7.4, all else to PHP 8.0.

I say this because when you’re running multiple instances of PHP, each has its own config, including memory limits and such, so the total server memory is split between background tasks, the web server, the database engine, other libraries, and PHP. PHP will take as much RAM as you can throw at it, up to the limit set in the config, so it’s a balance between allocating RAM to each pot and making sure we don’t run out (even with a 8GB swap file for emergencies).

We have more traffic than this time last year, and the year before that, which is encouraging.

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#8 2020-08-26 15:25:45

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,134
GitHub

Re: Forum server timing out

Assuming no news is good (or better) news – please drop a reply here if there’s still strangeness happening. Thank you.

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#9 2020-08-26 23:23:33

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,058
Website

Re: Forum server timing out

gaekwad wrote #325589:

Assuming no news is good (or better) news – please drop a reply here if there’s still strangeness happening. Thank you.

I am trying really hard to have this occurring again, but unfortunately, everything seems to work as expected nowadays.

Thank you for keeping this site standing.


Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern

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