A Point of Interest

[Ariabella]

Several times tonight I'm getting a page saying we're having technical difficulties with our host. Do we know what's up?

[Atari]

I had that approximately a week ago when I was trying to change my picture. I formatted it to a jpeg and I stopped getting that page....hope that might help. :)

[Ariabella]

Really? Hmm...well I'm not trying to change my picture, just trying to post...

[Elvi]

It has happened now and then to me over the last week.
I also had one very sharp note from a player demanding to know what the hell was going on because he'd had it once when he tried to post.

There have been several changes to the running of the site and this was posted around about the same time on 'Important stuff'.

We now have FastCGI/PHP installed on our server, which should significantly improve performance.  Since it changes the way things work rather fundamentally, if there's a problem please let Lilac or I know.

I'll send lilac a PM drawing her attention to this thread, so she can check it out.

[Ariabella]

Drat, I missed that post...probably when my dsl dumped me *sighs*  Thanks Elvi.

[Elvi]

*smiles*
DSL have caused mass chaos with you hasn't it?
*hugs*

Have sent Lilac a PM folks, if it is a problem, no doubt it will be sorted asap.

[Ariabella]

Yes, blasted stuff...well I finally got them to agree to me sending it back and I've got cable now...we'll see how long that lasts, lol.

[Elvi]

*lol*
Oh what fun!

[Ariabella]

Oh yes. As long as I stay connected I'll be happy.

[Vekseid]

Argh, hmm.

We were assuming that people generally wouldn't try uploading too often so it wouldn't cause problems, but it seems we need to make a workaround of some sort.  We may have to disable uploaded avatars.

What's the error say, exactly?

May have to disable avatar uploads altogether, possibly on the wiki also.  Maybe I can try and convince her to let me have access change these things when she's back :-/

In the mean time, please refrain from uploading avatar pics, unless there is little activity.  It might not cause an error for you, but it probably will for someone else.  Heaven forbid two people uploading at once.

[Elvi]

It's a pink/salmon coloured page with somthing along the lines of
Sorry we are experiencing difficulties, please try again (?)

I think that it is a Lilac derived page as it has her tell tale ;_; 

[Vekseid]

Ah.
That's the 500 error redirect.

Fastcgi works by keeping a number of processes open solely for use by cgi scripts (php), but only a certain number of these are allocated.  It normally works fairly well, but when someone spends a long time on a single function in a script (uploading a file, especially over dialup), they monopolize that process.  So no one else can access it.

During times of high usage, or if two people are uploading a file at once, could probably bring it down.

[Elvi]

So it's a high usage error?

If that is the case then there really isn't that much we can do about it is there?

[Vekseid]

We can also limit the size of uploaded avatars.  And maybe limit the size of posts, to 10k too.  It sucks in a way since we're not hurting for bandwidth at all.

There is a workaround, it's just rather ugly and I'm not entirely sure how to get it to work with MediaWiki or SMF.  A bit of an annoying conundrum, that.

[Elvi]

Well, one way is to ask people to stop changing their avatars all the time, there are some who do it constantly, seems to be a boredom thing.....

"Oh I can't post for the next 60 seconds, so I'll change my avatar"

Limiting posts would be a big shame......

[Vekseid]

Probably won't have to.  We'll limit avatars to 20k first and go from there.

In the mean time I'll gank Lilac's password and set it up.

[Elvi]

*gives Vekseid a big hug*

My hero!

*swoons*

[Vekseid]

Hugs is awesomage.

On second thought I've decided to disable avatar uploads.  Since it would otherwise wait to refuse the file anyway :-/

Nothing keeps us from putting up oversized avatar packs, however.  If someone has a pack of images they want Lilac or I to upload just let us know.  I'll also be moving the uploaded avatars over (though some of them were rather large, they mey get nuked in the future).  The way smf handles attachments and uploaded avatars is also problematic, I think, since it 'hides' them.

[Elvi]

Noooooooooooooo..............I have had that avatar since....since I was first here! *sobs*

[Vekseid]

Noooooooooooooo..............I have had that avatar since....since I was first here! *sobs*

It's being uploaded to the /Uploaded category in the avatars, you'll get to select it again :-p

[Elvi]

*sighs with relief*

Ahhhhhhh.....there she is........you're lucky there, nearly took thsoe hugs back!
*grins*

[Vekseid]

That would have been a terrible fate indeed!

[Elvi]

*lol*
*Gives Vekseid and extra long, extra large hugs just for good measure.*