Daily overload

[sweh]

Pretty much every day, at 2045 US Eastern (so 0145 UK time) the site becomes unresponsive. It just doesn't respond to web requests.

This doesn't seem to change with daylight savings (although I don't recall if the 1 or 2 weeks where the US is different to the UK also caused an hour difference).

Today, instead of just hanging, I got a SQL error

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

Too many connections [1040]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

Probably related!

[IanJeffray]

That's the error I always get - nothing new.

[danielj]

I can't see anything in the logs and haven't noticed it whilst I've been logged in. There was a point where something was attempting to DDOS us, I guess it could be something that attempts to scan at that time. How long does it last for?

[KenLowe]

That's the error I always get - nothing new.

Me too. I always thought that some backup was taking place.

How long does it last for?

I've never timed it. It feels like about half an hour, or perhaps even as long as an hour. Others will probably be able to give you more accurate times.

[IanJeffray]

It feels like about half an hour, or perhaps even as long as an hour.

Always around that kind of duration - 2-3am-ish.
I just assumed it was deliberate/known/doing backup/whatever. I see it very regularly/daily, being nocturnal.

[Pernod]

Always around that kind of duration - 2-3am-ish.
I just assumed it was deliberate/known/doing backup/whatever. I see it very regularly/daily, being nocturnal.

I've noticed it too, and assumed the same.

[sweh]

How many people are trying to use this at 2am? Wow...

Most days it does hang for me; yesterday was the oddity. Normally it lasts around 30 minutes or so.

[danielj]

It's feasible the whole system's backing up - but there's nothing set to do it at that time in the forum software. Could be something server side? I confess I don't really get my hands dirty with that for fear of breaking it

d.

[MarkMoxon]

It's feasible the whole system's backing up - but there's nothing set to do it at that time in the forum software. Could be something server side? I confess I don't really get my hands dirty with that for fear of breaking it

Are there any other websites that use the same database server, and if so, do they also go down at the same time? If so, that would be a handy clue.

Mark

[1024MAK]

I find that various other forums based in the same time zone also are a bit sluggish between midnight and 02:00.

I’m not generally trying to use any between 02:00 and 05:00 though!

And yes, some phpBB do perform a background backup overnight. I would have thought that this in itself should not result in an error though,

But I don’t know the specifics for this forum.

Calling…

@roland

Can you help with this query?

Mark

[1024MAK]

It's feasible the whole system's backing up - but there's nothing set to do it at that time in the forum software. Could be something server side? I confess I don't really get my hands dirty with that for fear of breaking it

Are there any other websites that use the same database server, and if so, do they also go down at the same time? If so, that would be a handy clue.

Mark

Yes, the archives that we have. But I can’t remember any links at the moment

Is www.retrosoftware.co.uk on the same server?

What about http://www.bbcmicro.co.uk ?

While on the subject, the landing page here https://stardot.org.uk/ could do with some work. Apart from the link to the StarDot forum, the other links no longer work.

Mark

[sweh]

FWIW, on yesterday's hang I was able to get to the static stardot home page, but any /forums/ page hung. So it could easily be database blocking, and when too many connections block then people start to see the "Too many connections" error.

[lovebug]

I used cloudflare.com for free ddos and badbot protection on my website , maybe it'll help here too ?

[BeebMaster]

Funnily enough, the "too many connections" error happened to me last night, or this morning, at 1.47am! I'm not usually Beebing that late, but the "autosave" we'd been discussing in another thread had been niggling away at me all afternoon and evening so late on I started to write something, and by then I had a utility that would work in host processor but doesn't work quite so well if a second processor is in use. More of that later!