Weirdness

[SFishy]

I posted this over on vBulletin.com as well, cause I'm not sure where the problem is coming from. It's VERY sporadic (it only seems to be occuring in one out of hundreds of posts).

There are no specific users it seems to be happening to (can't track specifically to AOL for example).

It doesn't seem to be related to traffic because it has even occured when my boards are slowest.

I recently upgraded to version 2.3.0.

Here's the problem:
Every once in a while someone will post and it's like their postbit template is completely ignored. Their post is blank, but the page isn't blank. The postbit template portion goes MIA (screenshot here (http://www.something-fishy.com/test/blankpostbit.gif)) -- it's not just missing from being displayed, but in the source as well.

Sometimes these posts occur all on there own (just one of them) -- and sometimes they occur in batches. You'll see what looks like 3 duplicates of the same post listed in forum display, but only the last one actually works... the first two are these blank weirdness posts.

I have no idea what hack might be causing it (if it's even a hack problem) -- I just thought I'd post it in case someone has run into the same problem and knows the resolve.

Thanks

[filburt1]

Is your server nice and zippy fast, or is it uber-slow?

[SFishy]

Pretty zippy fast.

Definitely not uber-slower.

Even when a lot of people are logged in at once I don't have any problem with things slowing down... but like I said, this problem even happens when my traffic is at it lowest.

I also have persistant connections turned on -- overall it runs better than way -- though I'm not sure if that could be part of the problem.

[SFishy]

I turned persistant connections off and we'll see what happens.

Also, to the "uber-slow" thing -- MOST of the time when things are going well things runs pretty quick. Ever since the upgrade though I've been hitting slow spots, and then end up with the "two many connections" error.

My database has grown to a gig in size. I'd really value a way to archive old posts, but hey, that's another topic ;)

Don't know if my connections issue and my blank-weirdness have anything to do with one another, but any input would be appreciated.

[Xenon]

archive old posts?
in my profile you'll find an old hack by me ;)

hmm, have you installed the hidden post hack and there are hidden posts in those threads?
there is a bug in the original version of this hack.. (and never was corrected in the dl file i think)

[SFishy]

Xenon,

I did see your hack in my searching -- I was a little leary of it only because it said it was written for version 2.2.6 and I wasn't sure it would still be compatible for 2.3.0. I also don't have GZip running on my boards because I'm not sure how much overhead it will add and bandwidth right now isn't a problem I'm concerned with. Lastly, with version 3 on the horizon and an archive feature added to it, I didn't want to go messing with my database until I at least see what version 3 is going to offer.

In the perfect world, at least in my mind, archives would exist in a different database and would only be accessed if you specifically chose to "search archives".

But like I said... different topic ;) -- I do already have your hack downloaded, so I'll stay open to the idea

I don't have the hidden post hack. These are also new threads -- they look this screwy right after they are created.

I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I don't have any hacks that effect the way a new thread goes up (newthread.php) other than a brand new one that only lets users in a certain group post X number of posts in the last Y hours. But this problem was happening before that. Either way, that hack is HERE (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52892) if you want to review the code.

Other hacks off the top of my head: Find threads started by this user (HERE (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32696) -- I actually wondered if this was compatible with 2.3.0 because it's rather OLD), some adjustments to who's online, who WAS online today (a newer one), custom moods (modification to avatars), memberlist will display only members with ICQ or only members with AIM, find duplicate IPs/Passwords (admin), uh... that's all that comes to mind right now.

Thanks for all the help everyone -- my ears are open!

[Xenon]

hmm it could also be a template problem or a bbcode problem.

make a backup of all showthread and postbit templates, then revert all to the standart version.
does the error exists anymore?
if not, some of the template html code is wrong.

f yes, compare the posts which makes problems if they have used some bb codes or other things which are in every of that post.


to the archiv:
the vb3 archive is a completly different system, it's just for spidering the board, but it's not archivesystem
My hack instead is a true archive which stores whole threads into other db-tables so they won't affect normal vb anymore.
yes it works with 2.30 on my testboard, and not gzip is needed but zlib (which is standart in php4.3 i believe)
it has nothing to do with bandwith save compression, but with true compression in the db :)

[SFishy]

Hi Xenon,

Thank you so much for your attention to this :D

Update:

I turned of persistant connections and my admin guru fooled around with some settings...

I also ran repair.php to the database.

So far so good... the weirdness has not occurred since we completed all that. Doesn't mean it won't (since it's SO sporadic it's not even often easy to track these weird posts down).

I'm going to let it run for a few days like this and see what happens. I'm also checking on some of my older hacks to make sure the code is all still compatible with the newest version.

Xenon... I did compare the wacky posts to "normal" ones -- the problem is, everything that should have appeared via the postbit was destroyed when the weirdness occurred -- so even doing a view-source showed nothing but emptiness where the guts of the post would be. If I tried to edit the post through the admin options drop-down, I'd just end up with database errors.

I'll also keep your archive hack handy. Once I get these other issues resolved for sure, I'll be willing to explore it more again. I don't want to go installing any new hacks while I'm still having problems ;)

I'll keep ya updated -- and if anyone else has run into this similar weirdness, I'd love to hear about it, or hear how you resolved it.

[SFishy]

After my last reply things were working okay up until last night ... this same problem happened again (around 8pm Eastern Time). The board seemed to slow way down (response times were terrible) and when one person posted their post showed up 5 times in forumdisplay and each one was blank (like the example above).

[Xenon]

seems like the post was not entered and read out correctly from the db.
but that's a hosting problem then, not a vb problem

[SFishy]

Xenon,

Not sure what you mean by "read out correctly" -- If I could say it was always happening to AOL users (as an example) I'd feel more confident saying it's a hosting problem. Could ya explain in more detail if ya don't mind?

Thanks

[Xenon]

if the problem just occurs when on the same time your board gets unbelievable slow, it's normally a problem with the server, so your host is the problem

[SFishy]

Xenon,

Okay, I understand what you're saying -- the problem is to figure out which problem is occuring first. Is this weird error causing some problem that they slows down the board, or vice versa.

And it's occurring even during times when traffic on my board is low -- so I don't know that it's load on the server. I'm on my own dedicated server.

Also, I didn't at all HAVE this problem until after upgrading to 2.3.0, so I would jump to the conclusion it's a VB thing before I'd say it's a host problem.

Make sense?

[Xenon]

Also, I didn't at all HAVE this problem until after upgrading to 2.3.0, so I would jump to the conclusion it's a VB thing before I'd say it's a host problem.

as there are a lot of users using vb230 without this, it's surely not a vb problem.
But if it's really not your host, maybe you have made a big mistake while upgrading?
Maybe you should restart the upgradeprocedure from the ground up.