DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

From about 2:00am EDT last night until at least noon today, I wasn't able to get to the forums, as it was complaining about not being able to access the database. When I tried going directly to a specific page, it told me some max_users was exceeded or something, but the value for maximum users online at once is still set to 31 from March. Was there a DOS attack on the forum or something?

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

Sorry for the forum screw-up - we're still not entirely sure what happened, but I'm told it had something to do with the forum robot, and I'd say (with no knowledge whatsoever) that everyone has to go through the robot at some point to be sorted out into whoever you are. We've made another one, which is why you can read this message.

So, in conclusion - we're not sure what happened, yet, but Schik's on it. And I know less than him.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5383
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

The robot is just the user used to connect to the database. Mr. Robot had too many connections at once, and you're right, I'm not sure why. There had to be a lot of zombie connections that were taking a very long time to time out, but I don't know what caused this.

Our new db user had no connections active, so it's all working again. I'll be keeping an eye on the connections, and if I'm lucky I'll find a problem like this before it becomes a problem.

Even if I find it too late, I can now instantly switch back and forth between the two users, thus keeping our forum downtime to a minimum. I guess I could even make the code automatically switch to the other user if it can't connect... Hmmm....


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

If it makes any difference for you to know, it happened to me as well, except it was intermittently not working - every couple of hours I could get back on, but it would stop again almost immediately.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....