I posted this as announcement, but for additional coverage, and as a way to get feedback if anyone would like to post such, I am making this thread.
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Some of you may have noticed at various times that you recive an error that starts kind of like:
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Database error in vBulletin 3.6.8:
Invalid SQL:
SELECT
user.username, (user.options & 512) AS invisible, user.usergroupid,
session.userid, session.inforum, session.lastactivity,
IF(displaygroupid=0, user.usergroupid, displaygroupid) AS displaygroupid, infractiongroupid
FROM session AS session
LEFT JOIN user AS user ON(user.userid = session.userid)
WHERE session.lastactivity > 1193965939
ORDER BY username ASC;
MySQL Error : Got error 12 from storage engine
Error Number : 1030
Date : Thursday, November 1st 2007 @ 08:42:19 PM
Script : http://broncosforums.com/forums/
Referrer :
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A few weeks ago, this happened two days in a row, but it only lasted for a minute or less. About a week ago, we had a couple incidents, and they lasted a bit longer.
Today we had a 1 minute stretch at 1:56, but unfortunately, we had a period of about 40 minutes (7:55 - 8:40) where the error was happening quite routinely.
When this happens, it is because the server that I host BroncosForums.com on is having a load issue and the MySQL database is shut down manually, to ease the burden on the server, or the database crashed.
When I first saw the errors appear weeks ago, I purchased a much larger hosting account, which is a VPS (virtual private server) which while not a dedicated server, it is a virtual server that comes with guaranteed levels of RAM and % of CPU power. The physical server is located in Dallas in the same facility that houses the major telecom, and the company I am leasing the VPS from has direct links to the major telecom's tier1 backbones in that Dallas facility. The VPS will be housed on a Dell Server that is a dual quad-core, meaning it has 8 CPU cores that run at 2.66 ghz, has 16 gb or RAM and is connected to a RAID 10 drive array running 15,000 RPM drives.
So, what this means is that once we move, the forum should be faster to respond, and those errors should go away, since the server won't be overloaded.
I have spent the last three weekends preparing to migrate the server, but since the database errors had slowed down, and the company I am leasing the VPS from was upgrading to these faster servers last week, I decided to hold off. Combine that with the fact I will be out of the country next week, and I felt that now was not the best time to move to a new server.
However, if these problems pop up again to the same degree as they did tonight, either tomorrow or Saturday, then I will probably immediately migrate to the new server (possibly VERY early Sunday AM to minimize downtime) and then just hope that it runs smooth when I am out of the country with limited time to address server issues.
I just wanted to keep everyone in the loop with what I have lined up to deal with server hiccups we are getting everyone once in a while.
T