Help with a forum issue on another forum

[farleigh]

Hi there. Just wondered if anybody could help with an issue on another forum I am on. It is a much smaller forum than this and it keeps going down with the following message.

SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

User si_phpbb already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203]

There appear to be lots of guests who are reading articles but never contributing.

I know it is a long shot but I wondered if anybody could help or point me in a useful direction?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Typhoon]

Hi there. Just wondered if anybody could help with an issue on another forum I am on. It is a much smaller forum than this and it keeps going down with the following message.

SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

User si_phpbb already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203]

There appear to be lots of guests who are reading articles but never contributing.

I know it is a long shot but I wondered if anybody could help or point me in a useful direction?

Thanks in advance.

I suggest this is a problem for the Database/ Forum Administrator. I used to teach basic SQL but that is outside my skills base.

I carried out a search and came up with a lot of people asking much the same thing. The most useful response I could find was (bold section)

Probably the problem is that you have only a handful connections allowed and when your class tries to get a new connection you have this error.

This is not a programming problem, just quantity of resources available. And any other script that uses this class are subject to have the error.

You have to configure more connections on mysql config file on the server. If you don't have this access, ask the support to do it or change for a hosting company with more connections allowed!

If you are just a user of the forum, you certainly won't have access. I am assuming you just joined the forum like I did with this one, in which case there is nothing you can do. Whoever is managing the forum must be aware of the problem - it might also be that they are unable to do anything or tied down by the restraints of the hosting company.

It might be that you just have to put up with an intermittent service. Sorry I can't be more positive.

(Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions...e-than-max-user-connections-active-connectio - I have looked at some of the other proposed solutions, those I understand all need to be carried out at Administrator level)

 

[Typhoon]

There appear to be lots of guests who are reading articles but never contributing.

Actually I think this hits the nail on the head. When I logged in to this forum to post this response, I noticed that less than a quarter of viewers were members.

The link I provided does give both the solution and a reason why this solution may not be implementable if you scroll down.

you can set from mysql command line too
SET GLOBAL max_user_connections = 0;
restart your apache server

(setting this value to zero means you can have unlimited users!)

For this on Godaddy shared hosting, you cant change the MAX_USER_CONNECTION value. To find it, click Server<>, then click Variables in the menu-bar. Mine is set to 200.

I would have thought that was fairly common practice.

As I stated in #2, this is at Administrator level so well beyond what the user can affect.

 

[farleigh]

Thanks Typhoon - really grateful for you taking the time to post that. I shall pass it on tho the admins of the site but it sounds like they may have to pass it on to the host as they are not particularly tech savvy? Thanks again.

 

[Typhoon]

Thanks Typhoon - really grateful for you taking the time to post that. I shall pass it on tho the admins of the site but it sounds like they may have to pass it on to the host as they are not particularly tech savvy? Thanks again.

No problem, I wish I could have been more helpful (at least I was able to dust down my 'Guide to SQL' - 664 pages and it's not in there). From what you have written, it is probably down to the hosts who might respond with 'that's what you signed up for'.

To be honest:

There appear to be lots of guests who are reading articles but never contributing.

is the nub of the problem. I suspect that the forum administrators have underestimated the number of interlopers. Do others have the same problem? They might be able to suggest times when the visitors have gone for tea. Not a very high-tech solution.

 

[farleigh]

Do others have the same problem? They might be able to suggest times when the visitors have gone for tea. Not a very high-tech solution.

Yes - everybody gets locked out with the same message. The number of guests has risen dramatically over the last week and they are constantly reading articles (about 40-60 guests when 2 or 3 might be the normal level).

The site normally performs OK in the morning but by afternoon it starts wobbling and then in the evening it is unusable, displaying the message to all users.

Thanks again.

 

[Crossover]

I presume "si_phpbb" is the database user account that the forum software uses to access the database

I'm not an expert in SQL but if I saw that sort of error on anything I run, I would probably initially look to concurrent connections/locks on the database

 

[farleigh]

I presume "si_phpbb" is the database user account that the forum software uses to access the database

I'm not an expert in SQL but if I saw that sort of error on anything I run, I would probably initially look to concurrent connections/locks on the database

I think so Crossover. It is called Snooker Island so that is probably what the si stands for. I will pass this on to the admins. Thank you

 

[ajs1981]

Just to add to what others have said - the site is using a database and it has a limit on the number of connections that can be used at the same time. My knowledge is more on the database side than the web side but I've had some involvement with web/database configurations. The two options I can think of are:

a) The number of simulatenous users
b) A problem in the website code or configuration that gets triggered by more users. I am thinking of an example like this:

Website viewer A opens the webpage and a connection gets opened to the database
Viewer A leaves the website but the connection isn't closed
Website viewer B opens the webpage and a second connection gets opened

As this pattern continues you eventually run out of connections and the more people using the site the quicker you run out. There is probably a 'timeout' setting that unused connections get automatically closed but a) that's an untidy way to deal with this issue and b) depending on how long the timeout is it may not be effective anyway.

I think it's also possible for a website to open more than one connection per viewer and maybe this can be optimised but that's more into web coding and beyond my knowledge.

There could be other options, as I said it's not quite my area of knowledge.