Re: [mv] The Mysterious (Periodic) Disappearance of Minivend...

[Wes Zuber <wes@uia.net>]

Kyle,

I am March's boss. I am the system admin here and like you I am pulling my hair
out with this one. We are willing to participate in whatever way possible to
solve the problem. We will try the -D option and report what we find.  It seems
unlikely that the problem is with the OS since we are running BSDI and have the
same problem as you, with FreeBSD.

--Wes


On Sat, 23 Oct 1999, you wrote:
> ******    message to minivend-users from "kyle@invisio.com" <kyle@invisio.com>     ******
> 
> March and anyone else interested,
> 
> After scouring the mail archive, I came across what could be
> (at least for me) the problem. It has to do with forking.
> 
> I have been running the minivend server for 30+ hours now
> (before it would crash several times a day)
> without a crash by starting it like:
> 
> minivend -D -serve
> 
> This does stop minivend from using fork to spawn new servers
> so this is not a "fix" but while I work on the problem, it does keep
> the store open. Fortunately it is the only domain on a fast new 
> server so it is keeping up pretty well.
> 
> >From what I read, it looks like it is a problem with either the OS or
> a perl library that has to do with USR1, USR2 which helps minivend
> keep track of how many servers are running (and I assume that when
> minivend gets hit hard, it looses track and ends up killing itself).
> 
> I am paying someone now to look over this problem and will report
> back when we've figured out exactly where the problem is (and 
> hopefully the solution)
> 
> Latter,
> Kyle Cook (KC)
> 
> At 06:48 PM 10/22/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >******    message to minivend-users from "kyle@invisio.com" 
> ><kyle@invisio.com>     ******
> >
> >What is the most in depth debug level for starting minivend
> >with -D option?
> >
> >The reason is I started minivend like:
> >
> >minivend -D -serve >> logall.txt &
> >
> >And I want to be sure to grab everything possible from debug
> >to see if I can pinpoint exactly where minivend is dying.
> >
> >I do have checkstat.sh running every 5 minutes and it does work,
> >but I really want to find out why it is dying in the first place because
> >I don't want it to die in the middle of a real time credit card purchase
> >(IE customers card gets charged, but system crashes, so no record
> >made in minivend)
> >
> >I am willing to pay, if someone is familiar with this type of problem,
> >please send an email to me kyle@invisio.com with a quote to look
> >into it.
> >
> >(Perl 5.005_03, Apache 1.3.9, FreeBSD3.2 and Minivend 3.12)
> >
> >Thanks,
> >Kyle Cook (KC)
> >
> >
> >
> >At 11:07 AM 10/22/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >>******    message to minivend-users from "kyle@invisio.com" 
> >><kyle@invisio.com>     ******
> >>
> >>March,
> >>
> >>I am also having the exact same problem with a new install.
> >>
> >>I have minivend installed on one system and it has run for 6 months
> >>with multiple catalogs without ever dying on its own 
> >>(not including the occasional server reboot):
> >>Perl 5.005_02, Apache 1.3.3, FreeBSD2.2.8 and Minivend 3.12
> >>
> >>
> >>The new server is set up as follows:
> >>Perl 5.005_03, Apache 1.3.9, FreeBSD3.2 and Minivend 3.12
> >>with only 1 catalog (although it is a busy one)
> >>and it dies randomly with no errors anywhere.
> >>
> >>There are no "watchdogs" killing it, as I own both servers and have root
> >>access.
> >>Can anyone shed some light?
> >>
> >>Kyle Cook (KC)
> >>
> >>At 07:16 PM 10/21/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >>>******    message to minivend-users from March Rosenbluth
> <march@uia.net>    
> >>> ******
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Greetings!
> >>>	
> >>>	I've encountered a strange problem in my use of Minivend.  Periodically -- 
> >>>ranging from an hour to several days -- Minivend just disappears.  A 
> >>>restart shows it unable to find a running instance, giving the error that 
> >>>tells you to try killing it to see if it stopped normally.  None of the 
> >>>error logs show any comment at all -- the catalog specific one has two 
> >>>errors in it which repeat over and over but happen frequently without 
> >>>causing the problem and show no sign of being related.  Just in case, they 
> >>>are as follows:
> >>>
> >>>193.149.76.206 bI3FeJSQ:193.149.76.206 - [21/October/1999:13:45:16 -0700] 
> >>>simple /cgi-bin/simple/process Custom shipping field 'weight' doesn't 
> >>>exist. Returning 0
> >>>150.176.206.67 xujbI3Fe:150.176.206.67 - [21/October/1999:13:46:24 -0700] 
> >>>simple /cgi-bin/simple/process Bad search column 'code'
> >>>
> >>>The minivend error log doesn't show a thing -- it shows the catalog being 
> >>>started up, and then nothing until it's started again.  The apache error 
> >>>log is currently completely blank.
> >>>
> >>>	We are using Perl 5.005, Apache 1.34, BSDI 4.01, and Minivend 3.14-3, and 
> >>>are running only one catalog, which is based on the simple catalog.  I saw 
> >>>in the archives that there was apparently a similar problem with earlier 
> >>>versions of Minivend and BDSI together, but I couldn't find any solutions. 
> >>> Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks very much!
> >>>	
> >>>	-- March
> >>>-
> 
> -
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