171 replies to this topic

[SConrad]

In the last few days I get the following error all the time. Can you up the max_user_connections a bit so it doesnt happen. If not its no biggie I can deal with it.

SQL error: User spellhol_forum has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections
SQL error code:
Date: Wednesday 07th of December 2005 04:00:28 PM

thanks

ronin

I've been getting the same error a few times, and have exchanged several e-mails with the host about it. If anyone experiences it again, please contact me immediately by PM or email so that I can troubleshoot.

[ronin]

I havent had the same error recently but I am on this forum all day (minimum of 12 hours) and I see alot of double posts, happened to me before I realized whats happening, seem as tho every once in a while the database has a hiccup. You click on "Add Reply" and it donesnt do anything for a bit, then you click on "add reply" again (hence the double post). Then clicking on "View New Posts" will show you that your post isnt there yet, only after waiting a few minutes will you see that you post is actually there and not only once but two times. I think it still has to do with max connections. Maybe I am wrong, but thats what I am seeing.

ronin

Edited by ronin69hof, 13 December 2005 - 11:56 AM.

[Ascension64]

*Deleted*

Edited by Ascension64, 14 December 2005 - 03:55 AM.

[Kulyok]

Five minutes ago, I experienced this thing again:

IPB WARNING [2] mysql_connect(): User spellhol_forum has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections (Line: 132 of /ips_kernel/class_db_mysql.php)

There appears to be an error with the database.
You can try to refresh the page by clicking here.



I've refreshed quite a few times, so it must be somewhere in the logs. Hope it'll help.

[SConrad]

Thanks for the notification - I experienced it myself just now and am currently troubleshooting.

This is not fun at all, and I hope I'll be able to provide a permanent solution to the problem as soon as possible.

[Archmage Silver]

Just got one as well.

SQL error: User spellhol_forum has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections
SQL error code:
Date: Thursday 05th of January 2006 05:36:44 AM

[Ascension64]

Just got one as well.

SQL error: User spellhol_forum has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections
SQL error code:
Date: Thursday 05th of January 2006 05:36:44 AM

I think this might have something to do with browsing/loading too many posts at the same time. The server might get overloaded deciding exactly what the particular user is doing and basically kicks out till a timeout occurs. Just my wacky thoughts...

[SConrad]

The error is actually rather strange, and I have no clue on what's causing it.

Database connections open and close very fast, or at lease they should. Connections are active, pulling data from the DB at the exact time you are looking at the number of active connections. Right now as I type this, I am not using a DB connection, but when I click the submit button, I will open and close a DB connection for a split second.

It would take probably a lot of users (or a bad DDoS attack, but that's not very likely) to use up 60 connections, which the limit we have is. This limit was originally 10, then raised several times as we've encountered this error.

PHP closes a mysql connection automatically on shutdown even if you don't manually call mysql_close (which IPB does).

The exception to this would be if we enabled persistent connections, which we haven't.

[Ascension64]

But what if 10 people decided to open 6 different New Post topics at the same time? - e.g. I tend to go to 'View New Posts', check which topics may be relevant or good reading, then open them up all simultaneously in new tabs using FireFox. If 9 other people did the same thing, 60 is easy to reach. Unless you talk about 60 connections for the individual user...then there might be some kind of time lag. Hell, I sometimes open 20 topics at the same time!

Edited by Ascension64, 05 January 2006 - 05:30 AM.

[SConrad]

Yeah, that might be a possibility. I do the same, and sure, if many people does it on the exact same instant, it might flood the connections.

[Grunker]

I've gotten this error a couple of times to, but it seems to have lessened as of late?

Anyways, it's not too annoying, it's usually just a matter of waiting a minute or two.

Edited by Grunker, 05 January 2006 - 02:21 PM.

[SConrad]

Yes, it has definitely lessened lately, since the limit has been raised. Still, not good enough. We'll continue to work on it.

[Ascension64]

Or maybe we should change our habit of trying to process 20 simultaneous threads at the same time. Seriously, not even our brains can do that, and having 20 tabs loading at the same time doesn't really provide any intellectual, mental, or informative advantage on any front. I'm certainly proactively making myself open a maximum of only two or three tabs: "View New Posts", one new post at a time, and Control Panel/PM center.

[the bigg]

I'm having a weird minus one new PM information on the status line:
. I had 0 PMs by yesterday, got a new one today, and I both middle-cliked it and left-clicked it by mistake (= new tab + same tab). Now it displays minus one new PM.

@any admin: feel free to log into my PM box and check anything for this problem (the problem arised with the latest PM I got by igi as of now, which doesn't contain anything secret; just avoid SC's PMs, which may contain passwords).

Edited by the bigg, 07 January 2006 - 04:05 AM.

[Ascension64]

You naughty you, using too many WRITE_BYTE 0xff !!!

[SConrad]

I'm having a weird minus one new PM information on the status line:
[image]
I had 0 PMs by yesterday, got a new one today, and I both middle-cliked it and left-clicked it by mistake (= new tab + same tab). Now it displays minus one new PM.

Okay, that's a bit funky. It's a bug which happens from time to time, and it's most easily solved by sending yourself a PM and then delete it.

I'd do it for you, but...

@any admin: feel free to log into my PM box and check anything for this problem (the problem arised with the latest PM I got by igi as of now, which doesn't contain anything secret; just avoid SC's PMs, which may contain passwords).

...there's no possible way for any admin to log into your account or your PM box.

[the bigg]

I'm having a weird minus one new PM information on the status line:
[image]
I had 0 PMs by yesterday, got a new one today, and I both middle-cliked it and left-clicked it by mistake (= new tab + same tab). Now it displays minus one new PM.

Okay, that's a bit funky. It's a bug which happens from time to time, and it's most easily solved by sending yourself a PM and then delete it.

I'd do it for you, but...

Thanks for the workaround

@any admin: feel free to log into my PM box and check anything for this problem (the problem arised with the latest PM I got by igi as of now, which doesn't contain anything secret; just avoid SC's PMs, which may contain passwords).

...there's no possible way for any admin to log into your account or your PM box.

I heard that Admins can check other people's PMs; for example, I recall JC warning people of this on PPG, and on another IPB forum I lurk into an admin said the same thing).

[SConrad]

I heard that Admins can check other people's PMs; for example, I recall JC warning people of this on PPG, and on another IPB forum I lurk into an admin said the same thing).

Maybe SMF (PPG's software) logs PM's, or similar, and the other IPB board was using an old software version or a mod to log PM's, I don't know. Here on SHS, that would only be possible if someone manually browsed the forum database, which only I have access to, but it would still be hard to follow and not very user-friendly. I would basically see the sender's id, but not the receiver and it would be in a hard-to-read raw state (html and ISO entities for every character except letters). If I actually were to read a full PM and know title, sender, receiver and the full message, I would have to draw information from multiple sources in phpmyadmin and manually puzzle the different things together (and there are no shortcuts to do this).

Bottom-line is, even if I could do it theoretically, it's far to time-consuming and complicated to be worth the bother, and I have better things to spend my time on than snooping around reading people's PM's. Finding out full information about one PM is hard enough; and consider the fact that there are between 20-50 PM's sent each day here on SHS. Finding what I'm "looking for" (seeing as how most PM's probably are totally uninteresting to me) would be very tricky indeed. Besides, I don't even want to do it - from a moral point of view. I would be far happier if PM's were MD5-encoded just like passwords.

The board software logs all e-mails sent from through the forum, though, and those are easily viewable from the control panel accessible only to Admins.

So, uh, yeah. No one's reading your PM's.

[Jyzabyl]

*Yay* My evil scheme plotting the overthrow of the Admin go unnoticed!

Bwahahahaha!!!!


ooops...

[SConrad]

Busted.