Strange problem (db-related?)

[spcherub]

Sorry for the short subject line but I have no succinct way to describe a problem that came up yesterday.

My client called me yesterday stating that the "site was down" and that admin site was also "odd" (those were his exact words). When I previewed the site, some parts of it were up, but some others were missing. For instance most of the static parts of the page template were displaying properly but some dynamic elements like the main menu, and some content I was pulling using CGSimpleSmarty were simply missing.

When I launched the Admin interface, the main (Page) view was missing all pages - which was strange in itself because AFAIK CMSMS does not allow you to delete a page if it was the only one. I did not do much clicking around the rest of the admin screen because I felt that something had gone wrong with the database itself.

So I logged into the database directly, and took a quick look around - everything seemed ok at first glance. The content and pages were listed in the appropriate tables.

So I switched back to the admin panel and deleted cache - and suddenly everything was working again (site and admin pages)!

It seems to me that there may have been something wrong with the db connection where it was getting some information but missing others. Everything seemed to be working after the cache refresh, but I created a new db instance and switched to it anyway.

So although the problem has been resolved (so it seems), I wanted to ask the community if anyone else has experienced this problem before and also if there are any ideas out there about what could be underlying problem that caused this in the first place.

I'm using the latest version of CMSMS (1.9.4.2) along with a couple of extra module (CGSimpleSmarty, Gallery, Showtime, Form Builder).

TIA
-S

[calguy1000]

could your host have upgraded php on you, and now you're experiencing timezone problems?

[spcherub]

@calguy: It is possible, but I have the config['timezone'] set to 'America/New_York' as per the guidelines for this version of the CMS. Shouldn't that have taken care of it?

Also I have another (almost) identical site on the same server, but using a different DB instance and that was not affected at all (at least not yet!).

Thanks,
Sanjay

[calguy1000]

if it's a timezone issue, the problem (or something similar) will reappear around the time of the next content updates.

Other things that could've happened:
- Site moves to different hosts resulting in different file paths
- Temporary out of disk space issues that resulted in corrupt files in the
cache directories.
- Database table corruption (though you would probably continue to see some problems even AFTER moving the data to a new database).

Did you check the error logs by any chance?

[spcherub]

@calguy: Thanks for the suggestions. No I have not looked at the error logs - not even sure if my hoster (1&1) supports error logs as I don't see any in the logs directory.

Regarding your other suggestions:
- The file paths have not changed so the server has most likely not been changed.

- Out of disk space is a possibility so I'll look into that

- The database tables themselves seem ok, as things recovered after I cleared the cache. Also things continue to work after I moved to the new DB.

I'll post updates if I find any new information.

Thanks,
Sanjay

[spcherub]

No, never did find out. I do notice that I don't have a server error_log which is problematic. Do you or any other 1&1 user out there know where this log exists or how it can be enabled? I think the last time I asked about it, their support told me that the application was responsible for its own error log.

The problem seems to have gone away (at least for now) with the action I took (as described in an earlier post). It may have a temporary glitch with the DB connection which could have corrupted the cache files. However I am not sure why this affected the admin screens as they do not use the cache directly.

-S

[replytomk3]

Do you or any other 1&1 user out there know where this log exists or how it can be enabled?

What do you pay your hosting provider for???

[Mieszko]

I used to be with 1&1 some time ago.
What I didn't like with them was the fact that they restored your webpages from backups without noticing you. Also file permissions were changed. So maybe you should check that.

Cheers
M

[spcherub]

So the saga continues...

The problem reported in the first post continues to crop up. There are a couple of patterns I noticed:
- Only happens on CMSMS 1.9.2 (which both sites are running)
- Only messes up the content elements that are generated by the MenuManager (so if it is a DB problem, then it is something between the MenuManager and the DB)
- Clearing the server cache seems to restore the content (temporary "fix")
- The problem does not necessarily coincide with content updates - it happens even if no content updates were made in weeks
- The file permissions have not been changed and the PHP version has remained constant on the server

I don't seen any obvious corruption in the DB and everything else on the site seems to work well.

Are there any known problems/limitations with MenuManager that could cause something like this. I'm still looking into finding the server logs and will post something here if I find it.

TIA
Sanjay

[rfuste]

I've been having the same issues! I'm running version 1.9.4.2, and the first time I had a problem was in August 2011, when I found all the pages missing both on the live site and in the admin area, even though I could see them all in the actual database.

I also wasn't able to login to the admin interface the first two or three days after the site went down, but eventually was able to get in. I tried clearing the cache, but nothing.

Then I found out that my server had some kind of server attack on it that affected their mysql servers. So I figured it was a corrupt database or something. I had them restore from a database backup I had, and it all worked again.

The strange thing, though, is that just this week the same came up again - all pages missing from the live website and admin interface. This time, though, it was all restored with a simple cache clearing.

After some reading, I'm still not convinced either way if it's a server issue (no server issues listed this time from them) or if it's a bug in CMSMS 1.9.4.2.

Does anybody have more information on this issue? I've been meaning to switch my client over to another server (as the server provides poor customer service), but I'm wondering if the same issue might pop-up again in the new server.

Thanks!
Robert

[spcherub]

I never did figure out what happened. It has been infrequent and in my case the cache clearing always seemed to do the trick.

Also in my case it was only elements that were being created by the MenuManager that were not displaying (like the top nav, etc.) so it may be a slightly different problem than yours - or they are both symptoms of the same underlying problem.

Also I turned on caching for the MenuManager and I've not had the problem since then. It could be coincidence or related - I'm not qualified enough to tell the difference!

You can try it too - Layout > MenuManager and turn on the "Cacheable" flag for your templates.

S

[rfuste]

Hello spcherub,

Thank you for further context and, yes, this latest case of disappearing pages only had to do with the menu manager, like in your case. So I've gone ahead and made the two menu template I'm using cachable, and hope it resolves the problem like it did for you.

Thanks again, and keep us updated if more hiccups happen - I'll do the same.

Robert