Abyss crashes regularly after hardware + OS upgrade

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

I've been using Abyss for years now, and it's been 100% reliable, serving up pages for several sites. Current stats are 19 million hits over 409 days.

Recently however I upgraded to Windows Server 2003, and a new Dell SC430 server box. Since this new combination went in I've had nothing but trouble, but ONLY with Abyss. Every 12-70 hours Abyss just shuts itself down. The program's still active, but the tray icon gets that red flashing square, and no pages are served. Sometimes, rarely, the server only gives out generic 404 pages, not even the custom 404 pages I use on all my sites.

No other programs are affected, my FTP and mail servers are running with 100% uptime. Windows' event viewer shows no unusual events when the server goes down, and there's nothing useful in the crashrep.txt created by Abyss, or in the PHP error log.

Aprelium's pretty much given up trying to help me sort it out, so I'm hoping for other ideas.

Abyss is really great, and I've only realized how great after having this trouble and trying unsuccessfully to move to another server platform.

Your ideas are welcomed.

TRUSTAbyss · - Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 3752 Location: USA, GA

You mention that you occasionaly recieve the Generic HTTP Messages, right?
Are these the Microsoft "HTTP Friendly Error Messages" you get?

If the answer is yes, try uninstalling IIS and see if that helps you. Aprelium will
not give up on anyone. They're just busy Developers. :-)

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

The generic HTTP messages are from Abyss, not any other server.

IIS is not installed on this server at all, I'm reasonably sure it's not conflicting.

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

What is the error displayed when you get the red dot on the Abyss icon?
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

No error is displayed, Abyss just knows it's been shutdown. As far as the users are concerned the site's just gone offline, from an admin perspective the server's gone into some sort of standby or error mode, but it doesn't say anything about what caused it.

When this first started happening several months ago Aprelium suggested that the server seemed to be getting a shutdown instruction from somewhere. That's pretty much the only clue I've got to go on.

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

Hey aprelium! Nice to know I haven't been forsaken.

As you say, it's a very strange problem. I hope no one was offended when I cast around a little farther for ideas.

Lately, like everyone, i've found myself the target of more and more hack attempts. (recently my wiki was hacked, and I've had my forum hacked once before also). I don't know if it's possible to maliciously attack the server via a script and bring Abyss to a halt? </random idea>

As always, if there's anything I can do on my end, please let me know.

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

The only way the script could bring Abyss to a halt is if you use an ISAPI interpreter. If the interpreter crashes, so does Abyss.
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

It just went down on me again. That's the fourth time (out of many dozens of crashes) it's happened while I was browsing the forum of the site. I don't know if that's a clue, but it seems like an unusually high rate of failure to be purely chance...

This crash did not generate a crashrep entry, nor did it result in a blinking red square, instead the server simply stopped processing PHP requests (there were ~15 stalled PHP processes in the task manager FWIW). It's the first time I recall this particular kind of failure happening, but I'd been playing with the settings yesterday and I'd enabled fast CGI for the first time... Clue or trivia? I can't tell.

(AbyssUnderground: I don't use ISAPI)

Update: I've disabled fast pipes again as this causes PHP to seize up regularly. Just FYI.

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence,

Try using CGI only. Does this reduce the number of failure?
What is the exact specification of your computer (sorry if we're asking the question twice). What is the exact processor type you are using?
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

Hi Aprelium.

It was always set to CGI/ISAPI, I never changed these settings from the day I installed Abyss, except for two days ago.

The sever computer is a Dell SC430, P4 2.8MHz, 512MB RAM, highpoint 1500 RAID.

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence,

Could you please download and run CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php and give us the exact information that this tool outputs about your CPU type (especially the Name/Number/Cache info)? Thank you in advance.
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

Hi Aprelium. Details are:

Intel P4 521 Prescott, 90mm
Family F, Model 4, Stepping 1, Revision E0

L1 Cache:
16KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size

Trace Cache:
Size: 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative

L2 cache:
Size: 1024 KBytes, 6-way set associative, 64-byte line-size

Let me know if there's any additional info I can priovide.

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence,

Many thanks for these details. We'll keep you updated about our progress. Please feel free to ping us from time to time by email on on the forum.
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

Just an update: it crashed again today, and I took a snapshot. Abyss seems to think it's running, sort of, all the sites it serves are listed as 'running', even though it's clearly not (note the red square in the tray icon) and the Abyss server window says 'Halted':

the site 'nothing' is a default setup I copy to new sites, it's supposed to be stopped.

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence,

Could you please perform the steps described in http://www.aprelium.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=58136#58136 in order to help us understand what's running on your system? Thank you in advance.
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence,

Thanks.
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com

Lawrence · - Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 207 Location: Brisbane, AU

Well, it crashed again. Once over the weekend sometime (I was out of town for a few days, dunno when it died) and once tonight (less than 24hrs after the last restart), again while I was using my forum. Click one link and everything's cool, the next link popped up a 404 error:

Again it's not my custom 404, but a generic one. Abyss didn't think it had shut down, it wasn't showing the red square in the tray icon. In the past this usually meant most of the other domains it serves were functioning fine. I confess I didn't check to see if it affected all the sites or just one before shutting Abyss down and restarting it this time.

aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

Lawrence,

We're still working on this problem. The information you gave us is important but it involves a lot of guess work as what is reported in the crashrep.txt files you have sent is paradoxal.
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com