Internal error a bug?

[L number Banana]

I keep getting this message when I do just about anything. Every second page maybe? Is this on my end or what? WHOSE internal server?
Here's the message:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[Dave Rinaldo]

I'm getting the same message intermittently.

[andywoolloo]

I have also been getting it the last few days, randomly.

[MatsP]

The "internal server" is the fact that the Apache Web Server (which sends pages of HTML to your web-browser) can not talk to the other server in the system that deals with the database/PHP "active content" code that MAKES the HTML pages for us to see [or something along those lines].

Why this is happening more often right now than before is something that Jools can answer. Why it is happening at all I can sort of tell: Jools is paying for the hosting of Planet Catfish. Since Jools hasn't got HUGE amounts of money to spend on first-class hosting service, we have to make do with a hosting service of the "preimum economy" level to use a air-line term. It's not at the lowest level available, but it's (much) less expensive than the "business" or "first" class service that would give a 99.99% guaranteed service.

If y'all want better service, donate some money to PlanetCatfish to help with the cost of hosting. If all active members pay $5 a month, it would most likely pay for a much higher quality of service.

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Mats

[Jools]

Mats is spot on, it's all down to usage of the site and specifically the amount of CPU and bandwidth used.

If all active members donated $1.50 every month, or $15/year, I could run the thing on a business class server... At present it costs around $50 a month before donations.

I also need to look at some of the design of the pages, for example, if you look at my images you get an enormous page that places a huge load on the server. if I took some time to introduced pages numbers with, say, 40 images per page, it would help also.

Jools

[Jools]

Just though a usage graph would be of interest, the dip around March 29th is when I rebooted the server. The normal up and down is just more users, less users, the big spikes are something else - possibly bad coding on my part...

Jools

[MatsP]

Why is it (suddenly) using a lot more memory?

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Mats

[Jools]

Aside from 'bots, the only thing I can think of is big pages not completing quickly and stressing out everything else.

Jools

[L number Banana]

If y'all want better service, donate some money to PlanetCatfish to help with the cost of hosting. If all active members pay $5 a month, it would most likely pay for a much higher quality of service.

Funny you should say that, have you been through the What am I thread lately?

[MatsP]

Funny you should say that, have you been through the What am I thread lately?

If you mean, do I read it? Yes, I do. Have I read every single of the 54 pages of posts - probably not. But I've certainly skimmed over most of them.

--
Mats

[andywoolloo]

I think this site deserves tons of donations. It is incredible. The knowledge of the members is like having your own private library, your own private fish doctor.

I have learned tons from this site and continue to learn more on a daily basis.

Just my two cents.

Useless post I guess. Trivial... I don't know.

[L number Banana]

L number Banana wrote:Funny you should say that, have you been through the What am I thread lately?

MatsP

If you mean, do I read it? Yes, I do. Have I read every single of the 54 pages of posts - probably not. But I've certainly skimmed over most of them.

Sorry! Should have been more clear there I had just written this in the What Am I thread:

*Jools is very cheap with the clues, must mean we should all donate five bucks..maybe he'll be more generous.

I donated my five but I think it takes 7-10 days. Jools showed up with a nice clue anyway.

andywoolloo:

Just my two cents. Useless post I guess. Trivial... I don't know.

Not al all! It's good for us to remind ourselves how wonderful this site is. It would be a very black day if it were to disappear.

[Jools]

So, anyway, cutting down the big pages is one thing. If anyone has any clues around a decent tool that can point me towards the problem, please shout...


Jools

[MatsP]

How much access do you have to your server? Can you run unix commands in general? Do you have root access?

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Mats

[Jools]

How much access do you have to your server? Can you run unix commands in general? Do you have root access?

--
Mats

I have command line access, but not root.

Jools

[Jools]

Thinking about this even more, it might be that I am missing mysql free results in places and that causes a build up. Anyone know if that's logged anywhere? It is however the web server that's running up the high memory load, not the sql server (two different servers).

Jools

[MatsP]

Thinking about this even more, it might be that I am missing mysql free results in places and that causes a build up. Anyone know if that's logged anywhere? It is however the web server that's running up the high memory load, not the sql server (two different servers).

Jools

I don't think it's logged anywhere, but you could probably add a wrapper for your mysql_query() and mysql_free() [whatever it's called - it's been a while since I did that last], which log what is being done, and see if you have unmatched pairs. (Of course, you would have to update every file that uses mysql_query or mysql_free() - which is a bit of a task - in C it would be easy to do with a macro [I've spent the last two weeks digging around for a memory leak in a C graphics driver, and used a similar technique to log every allocation and free].

If you are daring, you could try modifying the mysql_query and mysql_free functions in the mysql PHP library itself - but that may go wrong and take down the entire server much quicker than a PHP logging scheme.

The sql result is stored in the PHP-side of things, isn't it, so that would make some sense...

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Mats

[L number Banana]

From a NON-computer literate person:
Do I make things worse by having many pc pages open at once?

[Jools]

From a NON-computer literate person:
Do I make things worse by having many pc pages open at once?

Not noticeably.

Jools

[MatsP]

This seems to not appear (very often)... So I'm moving to Resolved.

--
Mats