Mahz's Dev Journal

[GoddessSophia]

@Mahz Hey, I am not sure, if you're still asleep or at work. But the server errors have been going on pretty much all day again.

We could use some reboots once in awhile. I am not sure, if it's still the same issue you've been trying to fix...or new issues, that keep messing the site up.

[Dion]

i'm sorry

[Host]

@GoddessSophia

His Skype says he's online.

[GoddessSophia]

@Host He's not online here...

[GoddessSophia]

@Host He's not online here...

[Etcetera]

@GoddessSophia

He just went offline recently.

[GoddessSophia]

@Etcetera Mahz hasn't logged onto his page, on the site since last night...it says he's been offline for 16 hours..ish.

[Etcetera]

@GoddessSophia

On Skype. Not here.

[GoddessSophia]

@Etcetera I don't have his skype...or use Skype.

[Mahz]

Oh wow, wtf? Been visiting Texas so forgot to do my daily checkup on the Guild. Looks like the 100% CPU issue lives. At least I now know it's not a database issue.

Rebooted the servers. I'll look for a more automated way to reboot the servers.

[GoddessSophia]

@Mahz Oh, didn't know you were away :)

Yeah, the servers been acting up since yesterday. Thanks for the reboots :)

Edit-my next page link is still bit funky for recent posts. It only shows the first and second page now...after that...it doesn't work for some reason. Before, it only showed the first page...no idea, what's going on there. I did highlight the issue before...but thought I should mention it again. Just in case.

Oh and enjoy your holiday.

[The Grey Dust]

Oh wow, wtf? Been visiting Texas so forgot to do my daily checkup on the Guild. Looks like the 100% CPU issue lives. At least I now know it's not a database issue.

Rebooted the servers. I'll look for a more automated way to reboot the servers.

@Mahz

Thanks. Also please consider my suggestion to at least provide novel entertainment the next time this occurs.

That and enjoy your time in Texas. Get one of those really big hats.

[Dion]

@Mahz weren't you running a CPU thing on it? I remember you saying that. Did anything come out of that?

[Rockette]

@Mahz - Difficult to enjoy a visit in Texas when half of us are drowning, even the weather is bigger down here.

Good luck on these continuous sever issues, this blip seemed a lot more worse than previous ones, counting out a rate of maybe 90% on my end through ever couple of minutes or so [until I just left the Guild alone entirely] and noticeably so for others. Any ideas of what could possibly causing the 100% CPU issue now that it's not a database error?

[Dion]

I mean, the fact that people do not understand that the server ain't right and end up posting the same thing 30x isn't helping either probably. I bet half the traffic comes from that.

[Mahz]

Think I found the issue.

The BBCode parser takes exponential time on some posts. I've been suspecting that the 100% CPU issue was caused by my major platform upgrade a month or two ago, and this would make sense since the underlying regular expression engine was probably updated in some possibly minor way that is now susceptible to a near-infinite loop given the same parsing logic we've been using for over a year.

I'll try to narrow it down further so that I can patch the offending logic of the BBCode parser.

[Rockette]

Not to mention constantly refreshing the page.

[Mahz]

snip

[Dion]

Despite recent reboot I still notice lag on my end (i.e. the not-connecting and having to click it five times before something happens thing) but that might be because you literally just took the site down and then put it up again.

[Mahz]

Well, since it's an issue with the BBCode parser, any time someone tries to post/edit a post with the offending BBCode pattern that drives the parser insane, it's going to bring that server back down again.