PHP Environment

[ccmarsig]

I'm thinking this might need to be discussed as I've seen a few others with this problem...

There should be a mention in the requirements / install guide talking about the memory requirements for PHP. for years I had the PHP mem limit set at 16Megs and never a problem...lots of custom programming on my own and otherwise...for the new release of IPB, I kept getting blank pages, and finally traced it down to Allowed Memory Usage Exhausted errors.

Once I figured out it was in PHP and not just a bug in the software, it was a relatively easy fix...changed :

memory_limit = 16M ;

to :

memory_limit = 24M ;

in my php.ini file and restarted httpd.

It'd be nice if the requirements guide or the install talked about this somewhere...for someone without PHP experience, this might have been pretty hard to figure out...yet a simple fix once ya know what to do!

[stoo2000]

The thing is though, the PHP5 default limit is 128MB so they assume that because PHP5 is required, you'll have the correct settings on your server.

[ccmarsig]

Hmmm....for PHP5, it was 8MB, php 5.2 it was 16MB...*PAST* 5.2 is now 128...which is just fricken nutso for an interpreted language like PHP...

The requirements specifically state PHP 5.1 or greater...recommended 5.2. Again, 5.2.0 is listed as a recommended (and default) 16MB.

[John Swallow]

I'm seeing this as well.

Except my php.ini is set to 128M (and the board confirms that) yet I'm still getting blank pages and it's getting worse every day - the log file each day doubles in size.

Every time the error is related to a query like this one:-
"mySQL query error: SELECT * FROM prd_sessions WHERE ip_address='x.x.x.x' OR running_time < 1246230782" (where x.x.x.x is obviously the IP address in question).

What's triggering these queries, and is it a setting I can turn off?

[bfarber]

If you are experiencing problems you should submit a ticket.

[John Swallow]

I have done so already, but I thought this was a discussion forum for us to share our views.

If other people are allowed to make such ridiculous posts as "What does IPB smell like?", I thought it would be a nice change to make a post that's relevant to your product, which my users are getting more and more fed up with by the day.

[ccmarsig]

Not to step on any toes, but this is exactly why I brought up the 'feedback' in this forum. This forum's description is:

"Let us know how we are doing and how we can improve our products and services."

Yet, I personally have been told a few times that my suggestions were not appreciated and the thread closed...all while making suggestions that could help others.

I think John is pointing out something that could be of benefit to IPS and this was the reason I brought up the thread because I had problems, thought I'd note it to IPS (again, following the letter of the forum) and others are having the same problem (some being able to fix it by making the same change I did...one that IMHO should be in the instructions if 5.1 and 5.2.0 are appropriate PHP environments).

[Matt]

I think it's worth pointing out that we fixed John's problem this morning. It was because his session table wasn't clearing. ccmarsig - feel free to submit a ticket or check the number of rows in your sessions table. If there's loads then let us know.

[bfarber]

[quote name='ccmarsig' date='30 June 2009 - 01:32 PM' timestamp='1246383125' post='1817628']
Not to step on any toes, but this is exactly why I brought up the 'feedback' in this forum. This forum's description is:

"Let us know how we are doing and how we can improve our products and services."

Yet, I personally have been told a few times that my suggestions were not appreciated and the thread closed...all while making suggestions that could help others.

I think John is pointing out something that could be of benefit to IPS and this was the reason I brought up the thread because I had problems, thought I'd note it to IPS (again, following the letter of the forum) and others are having the same problem (some being able to fix it by making the same change I did...one that IMHO should be in the instructions if 5.1 and 5.2.0 are appropriate PHP environments).


As you'll note from Matt's reply, the memory limit is a red herring. There can be many causes of problems, and simply stating something like "we're having issues, it should be fixed" may not help us deduce the source of the problem. That's why I recommended submitting a ticket.

There could be a bug somewhere, an incorrect server setting, a missing task that does important things, a corrupted file - who knows.