Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Suppress-o-Matic - Stop database error spam

What is Suppress-o-matic?
Suppress-o-matic is a change to the way vBulletin handles database error emails. It limits sending the same error email repeatedly to your inbox every time a database error is generated. On a busy site if a table is crashed or mysql itself goes down you could recieve several thousand emails. This causes the email server to bog down, and possibly the server itself if there is enough traffic generating emails.

Why do I want Suppress-o-matic?
It should be pretty clear, you still get the vital information that your vBulletin forum is offline for whichever reason, without the hassle of having to delete and manage your inbox afterwords.

Why do I have to edit the files?
If the database is down, there is no way to get to the plugins. Plugins are stored in the vBulletin database.

Isn't there a vBulletin Option for this?
There is an option to disable some emails, assuming that the settings table can be read. If it cannot then it doesn't work. It even states this on the option itself.

Can't I just remove my tech email from the config file?
This doesn't keep you up to date. What if a serious error like error 28 (no space left) crops up? This means that your server could potentially have serious issues. Not resolving these problems could cause major issues.

Are you considering adding more functionality to Suppress-o-matic?
We have plans to add a repair feature at some point in time, with an on/off switch.

What is SQlite?
SQLite is a tiny database engine that is found in PHP. It is very lite, and requires only that php have the extension. There is no other dedicated server for it. You can find more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQLite


Whats required?
PHP5
SQLITE2 or newer (found in most php installations)
1 file edit
1 file to upload

Future versions:
Repair table feature



Project Credits:
Zachery - Project Planning, design goals, pestering.
Link14716 - Hard work.

This works for vBulletin 4.0 as well as 3.7+. vB4 thread located here.

[Link14716]

This doesn't disable e-mail sending, this stops it from destroying your inbox. Pretty big difference.

Stopping DB error mails entirely is as simple as removing the technical address from config.php. No need for anything special for that, but this isn't what the mod does.

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by MentaL

vbulletin options
HelpError
Handling & Logging
--> Disable Database Error Email Sending

Also doesn't stop connection, and crashed table emails if the system cannot connect or read the database.

There is a pretty big note about this.

[GeekyDesigns]

Updated the description text, should read much better.

[matthewhotdude]

Installed dunno if it works tho, anyway to test?

[Trek]

This is good, but I think it could be taken a little further. For instance, if you get an error, you get an email. But you don't get duplicates for X time after wards.

That works, but how do I know I have a REAL problem or not then? Meaning it could of just been a quick outage where a query failed for whatever reason. Or, it might be something really serious where things are completely down.

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe some way to email saying "We just received 350 error reports for this same error, you should check it out ASAP" type of message.

I dunno, maybe I'm not explaining it well but... hopefully it's enough to spark what I mean and maybe a better idea than only suppression.

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by Trek

This is good, but I think it could be taken a little further. For instance, if you get an error, you get an email. But you don't get duplicates for X time after wards.

That works, but how do I know I have a REAL problem or not then? Meaning it could of just been a quick outage where a query failed for whatever reason. Or, it might be something really serious where things are completely down.

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe some way to email saying "We just received 350 error reports for this same error, you should check it out ASAP" type of message.

I dunno, maybe I'm not explaining it well but... hopefully it's enough to spark what I mean and maybe a better idea than only suppression.

Its a pretty good idea, we'll take it into consideration for sure

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by matthewhotdude

Installed dunno if it works tho, anyway to test?

messup the config by using a bad password

[Sarthek]

Finally, some very useful mod. I tagged it for now, will give it a try in coming weeks.

Our "record" so far: over 18.000 emails in less than day.

[janslu]

I have it installed but I got php errors when my database had too many connections. The error logged was:

[10-Sep-2009 23:35:50] PHP Warning:  SQLiteDatabase::unbufferedQuery() [<a href='sqlitedatabase.unbufferedquery'>sqlitedatabase.unbufferedquery</a>]: near &quot;ORDER&quot;: syntax error in forum/includes/class_core.php on line 1015
[10-Sep-2009 23:35:50] PHP Fatal error:  Call to a member function fetch() on a non-object in forum/includes/class_core.php on line 1017

Any idea what might be the problem?

Line 1015 of modified class_core.php is:

	        $sqlitequery = $sqlitedb->unbufferedQuery("SELECT * FROM dberrors WHERE time > ".(TIMENOW - $timebetweenerrors)." AND errorcode = ".$this->errno." ORDER BY time DESC");

[Link14716]

Originally Posted by janslu

I have it installed but I got php errors when my database had too many connections. The error logged was:

[10-Sep-2009 23:35:50] PHP Warning:  SQLiteDatabase::unbufferedQuery() [<a href='sqlitedatabase.unbufferedquery'>sqlitedatabase.unbufferedquery</a>]: near &quot;ORDER&quot;: syntax error in forum/includes/class_core.php on line 1015
[10-Sep-2009 23:35:50] PHP Fatal error:  Call to a member function fetch() on a non-object in forum/includes/class_core.php on line 1017

Any idea what might be the problem?

Line 1015 of modified class_core.php is:

	        $sqlitequery = $sqlitedb->unbufferedQuery("SELECT * FROM dberrors WHERE time > ".(TIMENOW - $timebetweenerrors)." AND errorcode = ".$this->errno." ORDER BY time DESC");

Try to change that line to

	        $sqlitequery = $sqlitedb->unbufferedQuery("SELECT * FROM dberrors WHERE time > ".(TIMENOW - $timebetweenerrors)." AND errorcode = '".$this->errno."' ORDER BY time DESC");

I wish it gave more details about the syntax error so I could see exactly what its problem is.