Continued site problems...

I was having a problem yesterday with a "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of..." message which made my site unusable.

After trying in vain to find an answer to fix this, I eventually contacted my hosting support and whatever they did brought my site back up.

This morning, I'm getting this:

"The requested URL /Network/elgg-1.7.1/engine/handlers/pagehandler.php was not found on this server."

Having taken a look at this file, it states "pagehandler.php_Disabled_By_Arvixe" (my hosting)

They fixed one problem and created another, and it's no better because my users can't actually do anything!

Someone please help?

And a tip for you - Don't use Arvixe!!!

  • @ George

    Unfortunately not. In the end, after weeks of trying to fix it, seeking assistance from both the Elgg community and Arvixe, both were blaming the other for the problem and neither was able to help me to solve it. I removed the entire Elgg system and went back to a basic forum, which has worked without any problems since then.

    My honest advice would be to backup any user data you can, at the very least the user email list, then uninstall Elgg completely. It's a great *concept*, but it simply isn't reliable for growing a community.

    I gathered all the email addy's I could from my failed Elgg, removed everything, installed a forum and mailing list and invited everyone back. Since then I've only had problems with the primary WordPress install on the main domain being hacked, no problems with resources or usage with Arvixe.

    On another note, Arvixe are pretty rubbish when it comes to support. I have several sites with them from basic to VPS and whenever there is a problem on anything I get different explanations and solutions from every support person I speak to. None of them seem to read from the same book and doing something that you'd think would be extremely simple becomes a month-long extravaganza of confusing emails and tickets. It almost always comes down to them suggesting you pay someone to do it for you.

    From my experience, Arvixe should not be suggesting that they can support the use of Elgg, because they simply can't!

    I wish I had a more positive experience or could suggest a solution, but in all honesty the best thing I did was to remove Elgg entirely and go back to a basic forum.

    Good luck with your efforts, I do hope you have a better experience than I did. I lost a lot of members when my site collapsed, and although things are much better now and the site is still growing there are a few valued members who never did come back.

     

  • @George:

    The above link of Evan doesn't work anymore. But the same blog text is available in this discussion:

    http://community.elgg.org/pg/forum/topic/756584/fatal-error-allowed-memory-size-of-67108864-bytes-exhausted

    This might help in some cases where a memory exhausted problem occurs.

    The error 500 might be a problem caused by the mysql server being overloaded. Depending on the number of connections to the database happening simultaneously, the server might not be able to cope with them. Or the limit of connections is set too low.

    On any shared server hosting, performance problems / connection problems can occur. Either the server is really overloaded or the webhoster might limit the resources available to your site to not block other sites on the same server. With Elgg it happens easily that pagehandler processes might break any CPU load limits that are allowed in the terms of service if your hoster. If Arvixe has modified the code of Elgg to block pagehandler processes as they seemed to have done with Luke's site, it is surely not acceptable though. It would make your site unusable if they might not even tell you what they have changed.

    When you move your site to another hosting plan / another server / another hoster, you should also be able to backup and restore your database on your own. This can be done either via CPanel (or a similar admin GUI), phpmyadmin or also other tools like for example mysqldumper. Arvixe should also be capable of tranfering your database easily! If they tell you they can't do it, they are either lazy or stupid. It should be even included in the service of changing the business plan that they set up your server and site completely - other hosters do!

  • @Luke - They say it's a bad workman who blames his tools, the workbench, his work shed, and everyone in the nearby vicinity.

    First, Avrixe is a great host. I see them in here all the time answering questions from users. Combined with their own support forums, they probably offer more free assistance for Elgg than any other third party group.

    Secondly, if you're able to replace Elgg with a forum then you were probably trying to fit Elgg into something that it wasn't meant for in the first place. There are a number of solutions you could have tried if you really needed the social networking features Elgg provides, and there are a ton of people here that would have helped. I see you posted a few topics about MySQL usage and had some follow up questions and suggestions form members, but you never replied to them.

    @George - iionly gave some good advice. If you are still having problems, get ahold of RJ (http://community.elgg.org/pg/profile/rjcalifornia) and he should be able to help. If you keep discussion open, other members will be able to help, too.

    Likely what is happening is that your system is being overwhelmed and Arvixe is disabling it to keep the rest of their sites working. Elgg is more complex than simple forums or blog apps, so requires a beefier server.

    One of the easiest things you can do to reduce server load is to install the Eager Widgets plugin: http://community.elgg.org/pg/plugins/project/535997/developer/costelloc/eager-widgets

  • So is this elgg CPU usage still up in the air?

    I am encountering the same problem with CPU usage suddenly. My site hit the same number as yours Luke. And I am having the same problems. 

    Was on shared hosting then upgraded to VPS and was still hitting the 90%+ (1.7). I was also hittin gthe 500 error but found that it was because someone made edits to allow more connections than the server can handle but once it was set back it's just the CPU usage.

    Most of my visitors have decreased and we're losing them daily yet it still hits a high number of CPU usage. I mean my install handled more on their shared hosting than on the VPS. 

    I'm pretty disappointed that you couldn't find the solution to your problems because it seems that we're in the same boat. 

    I can't really pay $500+ to go dedicated with 1000 members..and I don't even have any power hungry chat plugins.

    Looks like the option is to jump off elgg and give up on my year of hard work learning elgg :(

     

  • zeroflares - adding comments to old posts just makes it more difficult to help you. Try to keep your posts on a single thread. I added several suggestions there.

  • I've gotten your email. Thank you =)

    Sorry I searched on Google for High CPU usage Elgg or something and these threads popup thought I'd ask Luke then later read his later messages.

    Edit------

    I read your other post - will do and keep to that one.