An Error Has Occurred

[Wolfboy]

Often when i want to reply or quote to a post i get to see this message:

An Error Has Occurred!
Session verification failed. Please try logging out and back in again, and then try again.

Can it be that it is a problem with my computer or am i doïng something wrong?

[Dan]

Often when i want to reply or quote to a post i get to see this message:

An Error Has Occurred!
Session verification failed. Please try logging out and back in again, and then try again.

Can it be that it is a problem with my computer or am i doïng something wrong?

It's an issue with PHP's notoriously shitty session handling and/or poor coding / bug in the forum software. You didn't do anything wrong.

That said, you should clear your cookies which will cause the board not to recognize you and give you a brand new cookie which hopefully, the board won't choke on.

[Wolfboy]

Ok, goïng to do so. Thank you for the info Dan

[Karla]

ARGH!

I've just finished trying to copy my own SMF forum about sustainability from one host to another. I had to revert back to the previous crappy hosting service because of this very error message. After copying it over I found that I couldn't log out and I couldn't log back in again. Sometimes I would be able to log out and log back in again repeatedly and then suddenly it would fail on me. So the move has been postponed to another night. The last thing I wanted was for 100+ people complaining about that! I'll let them deal with the internal server errors instead.

Then last thing I do is check my emails and see that this error has spread to here as well! We're doomed I tell yer!

I'm going to be looking at this problem in more detail but it's a definitely a problem on the server side. In my case it seems to be because my new host is using Debian Linux. I didn't know that it can happen when you try replying to a post as well.

What is it about web software and hosting? The documentation is terrible! But anyway, yes ... not sure what to suggest really what you can do about it. Maybe don't choose forever when logging in and close all your web browser windows? That way sessions have a chance to time out. Even using different browsers on different operating systems doesn't necessarily mean that it will start working again, but if sessions can time out you may increase your chances.

[Dan]

I'm going to be looking at this problem in more detail but it's a definitely a problem on the server side. In my case it seems to be because my new host is using Debian Linux. I didn't know that it can happen when you try replying to a post as well.

There's a 90%+ probability that the issue is in php.ini and is not debian specific.

Most portability issues with PHP are due to php.ini

In short, this file is a configuration file for the language itself which means you can't trust that any line is doing what you think it's doing unless you checkout what's in that file. Also, if you write PHP code, you can't be sure php.ini on the target host will be similar.

Do you have access to that file and permission to change it? If so, diff it with the version on your old server.

[Danee]

I don't know if others have this issue.  I haven't though the other day it (our community) was down for about a half hour. 

-D

[Karla]

I'm going to be looking at this problem in more detail but it's a definitely a problem on the server side. In my case it seems to be because my new host is using Debian Linux. I didn't know that it can happen when you try replying to a post as well.

There's a 90%+ probability that the issue is in php.ini and is not debian specific.

Most portability issues with PHP are due to php.ini

In short, this file is a configuration file for the language itself which means you can't trust that any line is doing what you think it's doing unless you checkout what's in that file. Also, if you write PHP code, you can't be sure php.ini on the target host will be similar.

Do you have access to that file and permission to change it? If so, diff it with the version on your old server.

Thanks! I have access to two php.ini files on my new Debian server and have been checking them against the requirements of SMF.

/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
/etc/php5/cli/php.ini

Also a couple I haven't looked through at

/usr/share/php5/php.ini-dist
/usr/share/php5/php.ini-dist.cli

Unfortunately I don't have access to these kind of details on the current live host. Someone suggested it might have a php accelerator installed on the original host but I can't even check that. I get a 500 Internal Server Error when things get busy and it can last about half an hour. Then the site just comes back up again.

The new hosts are a cloud hosting service so you can add new nodes, delete them, or even add and take away on a daily basis. So if the site really kicks off big time I should be able to expand as I go. Of course it doesn't help that I am also trying to hold down a full time job while doing this! Just come back from a week's annual leave, much of it was spent on this issue.

[Karla]

I don't know if others have this issue.  I haven't though the other day it (our community) was down for about a half hour. 

It's incredibly stressful when that happens to a site that you are responsible for. I've certainly never had any problems myself as a poster here. I'd be very hesitant about making any changes server side unless there is a widespread problem.

[Danee]

Thank-you, Karla, for all you do!   

[Dan]

Unfortunately I don't have access to these kind of details on the current live host. Someone suggested it might have a php accelerator installed on the original host but I can't even check that.

Without an accelerator, every time some access a page, PHP loads the file from disk, lexes it, parses it, compiles it into PHP bytecode and then run it. Typically, only 1/5 of the time is spent running your script. The point of that is enabling Zend to sell the accelerator at an insane price. What the accelerator do is caching the bytecode into your RAM so the process of generating it doesn't have to be performed on every request.

There exist an open source version of it too which your host is more likely to use (the Zend one appeals more to companies with lots of money who like to run official stuff).

The only difference between with or without accelerator (beside that your site runs 5 times faster) is that it's possible the cache have a stale version of your code. I have no idea how to ask the accelerator to refresh its cache, I never worked with them.

[Karla]

Aha! So accelerator == cache

I wish they used the correct terminology!

Actually, I wish this was all built in but never mind.

At the moment I just want something reliable that doesn't fall down for half an hour at a time.

It was even worse before I enabled load balancing. It could be down for hours then.

[Wolfboy]

My brain hurts reading all these posts here
I really need to update my computer knowledge

[Dan]

Aha! So accelerator == cache

I wish they used the correct terminology!

Do you think Zend Cache would sell nearly as much as Zend Accelerator? :)

[Dan]

My brain hurts reading all these posts here
I really need to update my computer knowledge

Which part do you need an explanation on?

[Wolfboy]

Which part do you need an explanation on?

I have tried to translate most of the words and terms i do not understand to my language so i would understand them better, but when i translate them they don't make any sense....
These are the words and terms i have most difficulties with:

SMF forum - debian - lexes it - parses it - Zend - PHP