Occasional server problems?

[Borek]

During chat last Sunday there was a short - perhaps two minutes - period when server was not responding and we were all kicked out. It was not just chat, it was not possible to browse forums at the same time, I have seen it in person and someone else (Jonathan?) confirmed once we logged back.

Similar situation just a few minutes ago - for about a minute or two server was not responding.

 

[berkeman]

I've experienced some slow responses over the last two days as well. Generally delays only in the 5-10 second range though.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Do you remember the time? Might be linked to some scheduled process.

 

[Borek]

No, sorry. Should be easy to locate in chat logs if they exist - everyone left suddenly.

Similar situation happened yesterday, but I don't know what hour it was as well. For at least 2 minutes PF were not responding. That could be just here. Next time I will try to record time.

 

[Phyisab****]

The server appeared to be down for me around 10:30am this morning eastern US time.

 

[Evo]

It was down for me around 9:10am CST this morning, lasted about 5 minutes. It seems to be doing this a lot lately.

 

[Monique]

Sunday it was somewhere between 10 pm - 11 pm Amsterdam time that the server hiccuped.

 

[berkeman]

Just happened to me at 1100 PST. Lasted 15 seconds or so.

 

[berkeman]

Happened again at 1630 PST. Another 15 second glitch.

 

[lisab]

Again tonight, just now. Couldn't load the page for about 10 minutes.

 

[berkeman]

Again tonight, just now. Couldn't load the page for about 10 minutes.

Me too, but my delay started at 1747 and lasted for about 2 minutes...

 

[Evo]

Yes, we were down a few minutes just now.

 

[Dembadon]

Hopefully this will help:

11:33 PM Pacific time today; site was unavailable for about 3 minutes. I ran a couple traceroutes to this site and have pasted the output below followed by my comments:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\>tracert physicsforums.com

Tracing route to physicsforums.com [74.86.200.109]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms x.x.x.x
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms x.x.x.x
3 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms 12.87.53.13
4 57 ms 66 ms 57 ms cr2.sc1ca.ip.att.net [12.123.155.74]
5 57 ms 62 ms 57 ms cr2.slkut.ip.att.net [12.122.30.114]
6 67 ms 57 ms 57 ms cr1.slkut.ip.att.net [12.122.30.21]
7 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms cr2.dvmco.ip.att.net [12.122.30.26]
8 57 ms 56 ms 56 ms cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.31.89]
9 63 ms 55 ms 55 ms 12.123.18.149
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 56 ms 57 ms 61 ms border3.tge4-1-bbnet2.ext1.dal.pnap.net [216.52.191.83]
12 81 ms 56 ms 65 ms te2-1.cer03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [216.52.189.30]
13 56 ms 56 ms 56 ms po3.dar01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [66.228.118.209]
14 67 ms 56 ms 56 ms po1.fcr03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [66.228.118.186]
15 72 ms 56 ms 56 ms physicsforums.com [74.86.200.109]

Trace complete.

C:\>tracert physicsforums.com

Tracing route to physicsforums.com [74.86.200.109]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms x.x.x.x
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms x.x.x.x
3 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 12.87.53.13
4 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms cr2.sc1ca.ip.att.net [12.123.155.74]
5 57 ms 57 ms 66 ms cr2.slkut.ip.att.net [12.122.30.114]
6 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms cr1.slkut.ip.att.net [12.122.30.21]
7 73 ms 65 ms 64 ms cr2.dvmco.ip.att.net [12.122.30.26]
8 57 ms 61 ms 56 ms cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.31.89]
9 56 ms 55 ms 56 ms 12.123.18.149
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 56 ms 56 ms 65 ms border3.tge4-1-bbnet2.ext1.dal.pnap.net [216.52.191.83]
12 56 ms 65 ms 56 ms te2-1.cer03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [216.52.189.30]
13 56 ms 56 ms 58 ms po3.dar01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [66.228.118.209]
14 56 ms 56 ms 56 ms po1.fcr03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com [66.228.118.186]
15 56 ms 56 ms 56 ms physicsforums.com [74.86.200.109]

Trace complete.

C:\>

I think this may be an issue with another facility. Notice on hop 10 that the request timed out. I don't know what gateway hop 10 is, but I'd assume it's either just before the Dallas hub or right after. The traffic eventually makes it to the site, but it probably had to find another route which likely explains the timeouts and/or site unavailable instances.

If someone else can run a traceroute and paste their results we can see if there is a timeout around the same gateway.

 

[Borek]

4 war-r3.tpnet.pl (212.160.0.53) 16.307 ms 9.770 ms 9.072 ms
5 so-4-1-3-0.ffttr2.Frankfurt.opentransit.net (193.251.250.173) 44.063 ms so-1-1-0-0.ffttr2.Frankfurt.opentransit.net (193.251.250.153) 34.024 ms so-4-1-0-0.ffttr2.Frankfurt.opentransit.net (193.251.250.149) 34.789 ms
6 xe-8-3-0.edge3.frankfurt1.level3.net (4.68.111.233) 41.610 ms xe-4-2-0.edge3.frankfurt1.level3.net (4.68.127.197) 41.944 ms 41.538 ms
7 vlan69.csw1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.68.23.62) 52.722 ms vlan79.csw2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.68.23.126) 42.204 ms vlan89.csw3.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.68.23.190) 43.557 ms
8 ae-62-62.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.17) 42.825 ms ae-82-82.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.25) 42.405 ms ae-62-62.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.17) 43.047 ms
9 ae-42-42.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.137.54) 137.747 ms ae-43-43.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.137.58) 136.054 ms ae-41-41.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.137.50) 139.319 ms
10 ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.146) 123.980 ms ae-82-82.csw3.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.154) 124.393 ms ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.146) 122.155 ms
11 ae-61-61.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.129) 130.650 ms ae-81-81.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.137) 135.732 ms 177.126 ms
12 ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.69.132.85) 147.795 ms 141.927 ms 143.771 ms
13 ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.134.21) 160.144 ms 161.236 ms 162.508 ms
14 ae-4-90.edge3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.145.200) 158.085 ms 216.448 ms 161.533 ms
15 te2-1.cer01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (4.71.198.18) 161.188 ms 160.622 ms 159.912 ms
16 po1.dar01.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.201) 160.492 ms 162.251 ms 159.134 ms
17 po1.fcr03.dal01.dallas-datacenter.com (66.228.118.186) 159.883 ms 161.268 ms 160.566 ms
18 physicsforums.com (74.86.200.109) 163.399 ms 160.240 ms 162.854 ms

No problems atm, but it seems I am not routed through mysterious 10 - and I have seen server not responding as well. Which doesn't mean much.

 

[Dembadon]

No problems atm, but it seems I am not routed through mysterious 10 - and I have seen server not responding as well. Which doesn't mean much.

The hop count will be different based on one's location.

I may be on a rabbit trail, but I figured if there were timeouts for other users just before or after traffic hits Dallas, then it might lead to something.

 

[turbo]

I stepped away for a bit, and tried to come back to PF before 5:20 Eastern just now. No dice - then it became "available".

 

[Andre]

same here; no contact between 22:03 UTM and just now

 

[Borek]

The hop count will be different based on one's location.

I know - what I am aiming at is that even if packets to me are not routed through the same server that timed out in your case (I called it 10 just to name it somehow), I have seen PF not rsponding - so it is unlikely that this particular server is a reason.

 

[Dembadon]

I know - what I am aiming at is that even if packets to me are not routed through the same server that timed out in your case (I called it 10 just to name it somehow), I have seen PF not rsponding - so it is unlikely that this particular server is a reason.

Ahhh. I see what you were saying now.

I also agree with your summation.

 

[berkeman]

1742 PST just now. 30 second delay opening PF window. Also generally slow at the moment...

 

[Mark44]

10:40 PST local time. Very slow opening PF windows, with IE timing out on some requests.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

It could be just a swamped server with some 3700 people giving it requests. Unfortunately I can't login to the server at the moment to investigate.

 

[berkeman]

1707 PST, a 1-minute delay, and then this database error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.7.6:

Invalid SQL:

SELECT thread.threadid, thread.forumid, thread.title, thread.prefixid, thread.taglist, postusername, postuserid,
thread.lastpost, thread.replycount,
forum.title AS forumtitle
,post.pagetext AS preview
, NOT ISNULL(subscribethread.subscribethreadid) AS issubscribed

FROM thread AS thread
INNER JOIN forum AS forum ON (forum.forumid = thread.forumid)
LEFT JOIN post AS post ON (post.postid = thread.firstpostid)
LEFT JOIN subscribethread AS subscribethread ON (subscribethread.threadid = thread.threadid AND subscribethread.userid = 8921 AND canview = 1)


WHERE thread.threadid IN (263281, 256355, 201673, 235643, 318641) AND thread.visible = 1

AND thread.postuserid NOT IN (141227)

ORDER BY lastpost DESC;

MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
Error Number : 2006
Request Date : Thursday, February 4th 2010 @ 07:06:50 PM
Error Date : Thursday, February 4th 2010 @ 07:07:19 PM
Script : https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2564231
Referrer : https://www.physicsforums.com/usercp.php
IP Address : 205.229.50.10
Username : berkeman
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version :