I've been running UBB 6.2.1 fine for several months, then inexplicably two nights ago the processes began running out of control and the board and control panel became totally inaccessible. I've spoken with my web host and they're telling me they have a limit of 50 processes, our board is suddenly using in excess of 100. When they go in and manually shut down processes I have only a few moments of very slow access before it locks me out again. I don't even have the ability to get into the CP so I can perform an upgrade in hopes of correcting the problem. Ideas?

http://www.banzaisquadron.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi

I just attempted to visit the board - I was told that CGI exection was suspended due to high load.

Your UBB is experiencing difficulties due to high server load resulting in poor performance (or the other way around - it's one of those chicken & egg things... load causes slowness, which causes more load, which causes further slowness...)

When things slow to a crawl in that manner, the UBB file locking routines tend to start falling over one another as the system gets confused as to whom the locks belong. That's why UBB instances just seem to hang in memory like that.

If things continue in this manner, you should begin seeking out another web hosting provider.

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

When I was troubleshooting this with my webhost they were able to kill enough processes for me to get into the control panel once. The first thing I did was disable all the forums. Within 3 minutes the processes were out of control again. Why would it continue to perform this way when users can't even access it?

The server itself is overloaded - when the UBB runs, it just adds to the noise, which contributes further to the load...

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

According to Earthlink (the webhost in this case) this account is the only one this server having any issues. In fact, according to the tech, there's another account running UBB on the same server, with no problems.

Aha! Earthlink has a number of known issues with their server and locked file locking.

FTP in - download the vars_pntf.cgi file. Edit it in Notepad. Find the line that reads:

q~Enabled~ => q~yes~,

Alter it to read:

q~Enabled~ => q~no~,

Upload, set permissions.

FTP to the /noncgi/cache-/pntf directory. Delete the "now.cgi" file.

Your UBB should pick right up after that.

I would highly suggest seeking out a new hosting provider. Earthlink's servers simply crumble when confronted with newer UBBs and the Recent Visitors feature when there's a lot of traffic involved.

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

Well I did as suggested but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. Still can't access at all. Are there instructions somewhere for moving a production UBB from one host to another? I worry that I may just be moving the problem...

Mmm, I forgot to tell you to delete global.cgi in the cache-/lock directory. Oops.

Earthlink might also need to reboot the server to clean out the remaining locks on global.cgi

This has been an issue mainly on Earthlink, but any poorly tuned server could have the same problems easily.

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

I have a request in for them to reboot, hopefully that will do it.

In your experience who is better host? I have a local webserver (IIS 5) hosting a few smaller sites right now, but the bandwidth is limited, how much does UBB require to function effectively?

Thanks for the help.

Unless you're on a pretty fast DSL line, I wouldn't advise trying to run any real website from your computer.

You can seek out recommended web hosts in our web hosting forum... We also provide web hosting ourselves. http://www.infopop.com/webhosting/

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

Check out http://www.powweb.com - I dont have a big board (8,000 page views this month) but their server handles that very well - it's quick with good back door access, great stats and pretty cheap.

Tech support is a bit lame and it sometimes goes down for half an hour but apart from that no real issues.

--------------------------------------------
I'm depriving a village somewhere of an idiot !

I'm piggy-backing here, because I have a BB on Earthlink and am having the same problem, but maybe some different insights. I can go to my board, make posts and travel merrily around. Then, 15 minutes later, if I try to go back in - nada - I get a delay and a blank page. If I link to a specific topic, I can go directly there, but not to the topic list - most of the time. Sometimes the list and a topic or two will not come up. This is happening to other users. This is a board just for family - only 5 registered members so far and only 2 of us post much and the board has been up only a few weeks, but every post seems to bring the board down for a while. After reading this thread, I found that FTP-ing in and removing the "now" and "global" files corrects the problems immediately, but it does not last. I think that the problems might be occurring only when posts are against a private or restricted topic.

Using ver 6.3.0.1
Board Here

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charles Capps:
Aha! Earthlink has a number of known issues with their server and locked file locking.

FTP in - download the vars_pntf.cgi file. Edit it in Notepad. Find the line that reads:

q~Enabled~ => q~yes~,

Alter it to read:

q~Enabled~ => q~no~,

Upload, set permissions.

[/QUOTE]Did you also do this?

90% of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at.
http://thegeeksinc.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

No need - the version I have already had that line as quoted.

It just happened to me again - with no posting. I was on a forum page and opened a new window to go to another place. After about 30-45 minutes, I went back to the forum page window, clicked on the link to the BB main page and got the blank page again. Refreshing doesn't help. I can still link directly to the forum page I was on, and to all of the others, except the other restricted forum. BTW, I did not post anything this time.

It can't be - Recent Visitors is on on your board.

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charles Capps:
It can't be - Recent Visitors is on on your board.

[/QUOTE]What "can't be" ???

BTW - it's all OK at this moment. When I posted it wasn't. Time seems to help and hurt.

I can't get in right now, from the front page. I clicked "Board here" link above - no go. I went directly here and had a long wait, but it worked (including recent visitors). Clicked on the logo for the main page - no go.

Sorry, you were composing your message while I was reading other topics and replying to this.

The instructions posted above are for manually turning off the Recent Visitors function, which is the cause of the lockups you are receiving.

Please turn the feature off now.

--
Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

Edited to remove as irrelevent.

We seem to be cross-posting a lot. Should I turn the feature off in the control panel? When I followed the instructions and looked at the vars_pntf.cgi file from my site and version it had enabled as "no" - but maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Also, will I have to move to a new host to prevent this problem??

Yes, turn it off from the control panel.

You will need to move off of Earthlink if you wish to use Recent Visitors. We're still not sure what causes it to fail on their servers...

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!

Thanks for the prompt help. I found that Earthlink's own Control Center has locking problems as well in the File Manager. If I check on or change permissions, sometimes I go back in, but get locked out with a message like "This feature is not currently available - try later." and it varies like the problems on the BB - doesn't always happen, goes away fast sometimes or slow other times and sometimes requires me to login again.

Can someone tell me if this issue has been resolved?

I'm on UBB.classicTM 6.3.0.

Been working fine for about 9 months on a great provider, then all of the sudden *BAM* - issues for the past two days. The ISP deletes the file causing the locking problem, the issue goes away for a little while, then it comes back again.

Please advise,
Jason Boche, Webmaster, ARMCA.ORG
Email: webmaster@armca.org />Our message forums: http://www.armca.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Please refrain from bringing up months-old topics.

Please turn Recent Visitors off as I have advised others to do, then open a support ticket. Thanks.

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!