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#1 2021-08-17 12:45:49

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
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[SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

It's been about a month now over which I've had frequent problems connecting to this site, and it seems to be getting worse.

In no case have I had issues connecting with other websites, and in several cases I've tested with the various "downforeveryone" websites which have confirmed this site was down.  In other cases it failed to confirm, but apparently just because this site was back up by that time.

This is most annoying when a posted reply gets lost in the aether, but it's frequently just when I'm trying to check for any new activity.

When I first noticed it (~month ago) the transient downtimes would generally appear to be only for several seconds at a time, so on a failed connection I'd often be able to "refresh" a few seconds later and all would be fine.  But it's progressed now to where if the site fails to connect it's not worth trying again until later in the day.

Given that I've seen this on multiple systems and confirmed through a couple different "downforeveryone" sites, I can't be the only one seeing this, right?  Does anyone know if the bbs server is having issues?  Are they being tracked?

Last edited by Trilby (2021-08-19 02:38:00)


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#2 2021-08-17 12:52:15

Slithery
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From: Norfolk, UK
Registered: 2013-12-01
Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

I've also been having regular short outages, but in my case it always eventually connects after around 30s but with a database error screen. Something along the lines of 'unable to delete search results'.

It's never lasted more than a couple of minutes for me and I'm probably refreshing hundreds of times a day.


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#3 2021-08-17 12:55:22

Trilby
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

Ah, interesting.

I remember seeing those years ago - and I believe the solution at that time was some sort of purge of old dustbin / deleted data from the database.

I've not (yet) seen that error message lately, but perhaps I've just never waited 30 seconds - I feel like I probably have a few times, but if a page doesn't respond in 10-15 seconds I am more likely to try a refresh and / or just go away if it still lags.

I just had it happen again.  This time I waited and timed.  While I just counted myself without an actual timer, I got to just over one minute before I recieved a "connection reset" browser error, not a database error from the archlinux.org server.  But then shortly after that it worked again.

Last edited by Trilby (2021-08-17 13:04:15)


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#4 2021-08-17 12:58:24

NoSavvy
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From: Dorchester, Dorset, UK
Registered: 2013-01-23
Posts: 96

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

Same problem here for the last month or so. Its ONLY the Arch sites that fail to refresh/update the page. Tried different browsers etc. Usually OK in a couple of minutes but sometime longer. Never any errors shown.

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#5 2021-08-17 13:19:33

Trilby
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

FYI, I was just able to have `ping` running at the same time as having a signficant delay / timeout in the website loading.  Ping times averaged around 200ms which is indistinguishable from when the site is fully functional.  This would appear to suggest that the lag is not due to a network level issue but rather is an issue with the web server request handling (this likely would have been the prime suspect anyways, but it may be good to rule out network-level issues).

Last edited by Trilby (2021-08-17 13:20:08)


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#6 2021-08-17 13:25:37

seth
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Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,985

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

ACK, frequently 503 - nothing else affected (iirc not even the wiki)

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#7 2021-08-17 13:35:13

Morn
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Registered: 2012-09-02
Posts: 886

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

The forums have been generally very slow for me recently, e.g. clicking on "posted", "unanswered" or "active" threads takes several seconds each time before a response. Same for previewing replies. I was tempted to open a thread about it yesterday.

Obviously the server must be under hight load for some reason. Denial-of-service attack?

But it looks like archlinux.org is on some kind of Hetzner service, so maybe it's not even a dedicated server but a VPS...

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#8 2021-08-17 13:47:10

d_fajardo
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Registered: 2017-07-28
Posts: 1,563

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

I can confirm the issue myself. I will be reading a certain thread but when I click on the Active link, it takes ages and most of the time I am flagged with an error.

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#9 2021-08-17 13:54:20

ugjka
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From: Latvia
Registered: 2014-04-01
Posts: 1,794
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

I'm having 3-5 second lag when clicking on things


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#10 2021-08-17 14:21:57

Morn
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Registered: 2012-09-02
Posts: 886

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

If this site is hosted on a VPS, maybe the problem is caused by another site on the server which is currently under attack and that slows everything down...

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#11 2021-08-17 16:22:54

qinohe
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From: Netherlands
Registered: 2012-06-20
Posts: 1,494

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

Seeing this too, first thought it was a problem on my network but only 'bbs.archlinux' is affected.

It started about a month ago, same as mentioned by others in this thread.

I have seen the same database error Slithery did a few times.

The outages last between a few seconds to half a minute.

Did not see the outages Trilby had lasting longer then half a minute.

Have not seen a 503 like seth did.

It's working or it isn't but no 'slow browsing' like Morn has seen.

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#12 2021-08-17 17:25:40

nunopenim
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From: Portugal
Registered: 2021-03-06
Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

To me it's same as @ugjka, just a bit of 4-5 second lag when clicking on stuff like "mark all as read" and stuff


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#13 2021-08-17 17:33:39

ewaller
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From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

Trilby wrote:

Ah, interesting.

I remember seeing those years ago - and I believe the solution at that time was some sort of purge of old dustbin / deleted data from the database.

I hate going in there.  Perhaps I'll spend some time cleaning that out this week.  I know at least one of our DevOps is participating in some diversions in the real world.


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#14 2021-08-17 18:18:26

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

I left a note in -devops:

jelle : jasonwryan: foutrelis has made some changes to the bbs which should resolve the issues of the bbs going down constantly

Fix was deployed in the last day, so if it persists (and I have been seeing it, but I can't recall the last one), someone let jelle know.

# Update: still borked

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Last edited by jasonwryan (2021-08-17 18:35:51)


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#15 2021-08-17 18:59:01

Awebb
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Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,275

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

seth wrote:

ACK, frequently 503 - nothing else affected (iirc not even the wiki)

Can confirm 503s, frequent inresponsiveness and occasional timeouts.

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#16 2021-08-17 22:11:54

porcelain1
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Registered: 2020-01-18
Posts: 97

Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

I've also experienced this a couple times. @jasonwryan that's the thing that pops up when it fails to load for me too.


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#17 2021-08-17 22:20:24

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

foutrelis has made a fix that should help now. As the cache table fragments, performance will degrade again, so the team is looking at a longer term solution.


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#18 2021-08-19 00:57:41

foutrelis
Developer
From: Athens, Greece
Registered: 2008-07-28
Posts: 705
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

Regular search should be reasonably usable now too.

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#19 2021-08-19 02:38:43

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,444
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Re: [SOLVED] (bbs.)archlinux.org transiently, but *frequently* down?

It does seem better now, thanks.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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