Computer Hope down time (Nov 3&9&23, 2009)

Just a FYI for those who may have attempted to access Computer Hope today. Apparently the Server went down today, CPU some how was getting maxed out at 400% usage. Unfortunately since I worked until 8am in the morning today I was sleeping most of today so didn't get a chance to look at it until just recently. Had the host restart the box and things appear normal but looking into it further.

Thanks for the heads up...... 

First, thanks for running CH.  I've learned a lot ( and relearned a lot).

CPU some how was getting maxed out at 400% usage.

I'm curious how a CPU could run at 400%?

First, thanks for running CH.  I've learned a lot ( and relearned a lot).

I'm curious how a CPU could run at 400%?

You're more than welcome, it's a pleasure running the site. This system is a linux based system and operates a little differently than what you may be used to in Windows, honestly doesn't make that much since to me either how something can surpass 100. However, each daemon (process) running on the system utilizes it's own percentage of the CPU, each of these processes can surpass 100 themselves and having dozens of httpd (a process that allows a web page or application to be processed by Apache, which allows you to view a web page) the CPU can quickly max out if something else is taking up a lot of the processor, which in my past experience has been a MySQL (database to run forums) getting stuck.

When the MySQL gets stuck because Computer Hope is averaging about 25-30 http requests a second and visitors don't stop visiting the site, things get backed up and the CPU percentage simply increases until it's so busy it can't anymore.

Normally if the CPU isn't getting hammered too much you can SSH into it and kill or stop the process that's using up the CPU, much like you'd do with ALT + CTRL + DEL. However, because the CPU was beyond it's max (normally wouldn't happen if I was able to look at it sooner) the only real solution was to reboot the machine.

Hope that helps give you a little better understanding of it.

[Malware Removal Specialist]

That was a long one.

Glad we're back.

[Moderator]

Welcome back

great to see it up and working again missed it last night

Had some additional down time today on the website mostly. I noticed when I woke up this morning that the traffic seemed low overall for the day, but didn't see anything wrong so assumed it had something to do with me getting up early. Later Lostcoast sent me a PM indicating that the pages were down, I hadn't been experiencing any issues but after pressing F5 to refresh cached versions of the pages noticed that I too was only getting the top header of pages. I first attempted to restart the Apache service and got errors about it not being able to load, so once again restarted the server. Unfortunately this too did not resolve the issue and restarting Apache just got the same problem. Therefore after trying and failing to see any known issues with Apache ended up having to rebuild Apache on the server, assuming something got corrupt and was causing it not to work and therefore load the pages properly.

After doing this everything appears to be working. Sorry yet again for the down time but yet again all my warning systems failed. Although not really sure how a warning system could of caught this since the HTML of each of the pages were actually loading, just not being able to be displayed?

Note: Many of you who mainly visit the forums would not of noticed this since they were all loading with no errors.

it's great the work you do and we all thank you for it


edit; just spent 5 min's clicking around the page's and link's all seem to be fine

some pages didn't load on the forums either...or was that from my side?

Anyway, as others have said, thanks for your dedication for this site. It has given me a lot and I'm doing my best to give back.

Thanks again

Two-Eyes %

I'm still getting redirected when I use the search box and still getting blank pages with all the links at the top of the page.........Both IE8 and Firefox.......whether or not it's related.

Anyone else getting the issue Karnac is experiencing? Also have you done F5 to reload the pages? I still cannot recreate your issue.

see my edit, all seems to be ok ,  might be karnac's pc 

[Moderator]

Karnac's machine is compromised.

Karnac's machine is compromised.

o'dear that sound's bad i hope it get's better soon

All is well again. My machine was compromised. It is better.

[Moderator]

Remember to check our "Installers Hall of Shame" thread from time to time to stay up on what all these yahoos are doing...

Just one of the many services we offer here.

Remember to check our "Installers Hall of Shame" thread from time to time to stay up on what all these yahoos are doing...

Just one of the many services we offer here.

Well said.

[Moderator]

Thanx...

 

You sure are quick to take credit for what you say

[Moderator]

Hey, I'm just checking back every so often since I can't wait to see what SMF 2.0 will look like on ComputerHope's forums, but I noticed this post:

There are service monitor programs that you can use which will alert you (using multiple methods) when something goes "down". I use on my much-less-professional server.
You could even configure your computer to play a sound alert on emails fitting rules that may detect one of these service monitor status reports.


MySQL can be tricky when it gets stuck. It can end up eating a lot of memory as well...

Hey, I'm just checking back every so often since I can't wait to see what SMF 2.0 will look like on ComputerHope's forums, but I noticed this post:

There are service monitor programs that you can use which will alert you (using multiple methods) when something goes "down". I use on my much-less-professional server.
You could even configure your computer to play a sound alert on emails fitting rules that may detect one of these service monitor status reports.


MySQL can be tricky when it gets stuck. It can end up eating a lot of memory as well...

Hey Zylstra good to see you still lurking around and sorry haven't got the forums to 2.0 yet. I have several different monitor system setup, but the last one wasn't detected because everything was up, but some type of bug within Apache caused pages to not fully load. So the HTML was loading but browsers were not showing the pages?? Not sure of any monitoring system that could detect that.

[Moderator]

Perhaps it's something on my end, but when logged in I am unable to access the Windows XP subforum. I've tried on IE8 and Safari - just a blank page comes up with both browsers. Other forums seem fine, and if I am NOT logged in I am able to access the forum. Just started this morning.

I can access the sub forum Allan , if that helps.

[Moderator]

Well, I just tried with Firefox too and same result. Works fine if I'm not logged in but a blank page after I log in.

Well, I just tried with Firefox too and same result. Works fine if I'm not logged in but a blank page after I log in.

Strange. Tried this on multiple computers in Firefox and IE and all pulled this page up correctly with no issues. Set my alt account to the same membergroup as you and still had no issues. Finally, tried changing the theme and still was able to access it. Based off all this I'd still have to be under the assumption it's something with your computer.

Anyone else encountering this problem?

Anyone else encountering this problem?

Not since you fixed the access for IE.
I did notice that logging in with IE7 left an ad that showed up at the bottom of the screen.  I updated this laptop to IE8 to check, the ad is now at the top of the screen.  This ad is only visible in the full screen chat though.

[Moderator]

Working fine today. Not sure what it was yesterday, but the same thing happened on multiple systems with multiple browsers. Ah well, sorry to raise the yellow flag.

Computer_Commando sent me a PM earlier today indicating he was running into issues again while opening CH in IE (only top portion of page loading). After finally getting the issue to duplicate it appeared to be the same issue that happened earlier. Confused I reboot the server once again to see if that would resolve the issue (about 5 min downtime). After a few hours of trying the site locally and getting the same results I finally found that it was not the server causing the last two issues but an issue with how Internet Explorer 7 and 8 doesn't like JavaScript files to load document.write files in a table. Document.write apparently causes all other data below it to be overwritten, which is why the source code was there but visually didn't see anything other than the top bar. This also explains why the forums continued to work fine but the site didn't since the forums don't use this.

Why this all the sudden started to appear is beyond me. However, as a temporary fix I removed the contents of the JavaScript file and am now in the process of re-uploading the site with the new fixes and hope that this resolves all issues for IE users. I apologize to IE users as I'm often in Firefox so didn't know of this issue until Computer_Commando let me know.

[Moderator]

Yes, I also saw this today but one or two page reloads "fixed" it each time.

I must have reloaded IE8 50 times, then cleared temp files, etc. all to no avail.  Was never a problem with Firefox.

[Moderator]

Must have just been good timing on my part I guess. But I agree, whenever I run into problems on a site I launch Firefox or Opera or Safari and move right along. It's just that I've been using IE so many years I keep returning to the one I'm most comfortable with - even if it IS slower and sometimes buggier than the others. Never said I was smart

I've been experimenting with Firefox Portable.  I run it from a 500MB CF Drive in a media card reader.  It's the best use I can find for it, and no longer use it in the original device.  I usually don't move it from computer to computer, unless something comes up, like today.

whew thanks computerhope ...
and nice to be back again...

Sorry for the troubles, while fixing this I also finally got around to getting rid of that pesky broken compatibility icon from showing up as well.

You're so good to us Nathan, where would we be without you?