Site Errors (Slow pages, slow posting, connection reset, uploads failing)

[#1]

Quote from: Anotherone

Nor do I, in view of the data PN have already been given, so I don't know why you are suggesting it might be TORPC. However, I DO think it would be a good idea to update to the latest version for a whole variety of reasons which you can no doubt discover on the SMF site. Is that such a big job Kelly?

Not a huge job, no.  Just needs doing along side the other stuff we've got to do.   I'm working on getting it prioritised.

[#2]

So far no change in performance
albeit early days
Personally I like to see the Avatars & sigs
I wonder if starting another thread on how members have their settings set (bear with me (a moment please)) to see if we can find a common denominator, due to the very nature it doe not affect everyone @ the same time
It could be

1. Forum settings
2. Browser / version
3. O/S
4. DNS Servers
5. Line quaility
& maybe other equations could be factored in (where applicable)

[#3]

Quote from: Kelly

I'm working on getting it prioritised.

Yes please Kelly 

[#4]

switching off sigs and avatars didn't make much/any difference

[#5]

I found exactly the same tbh OJ

[#6]

On the previous, it will depend on how busy the relevant servers were at the time of course.
Anyway, since about 0800 ish this morning (might have been earlier) until around about 0920 it's been like treacle with added glue again 
No external servers involved. In the time it was taking to load/preview one thread/post/PM I could have read and answered half a dozen. This NO longer amusing.

[#7]

As some of us sometimes see the issues at different times and don't get them when others do, I'm wondering if there's a gateway dependency variable as well. I'm currently on ptw-ag02. Last week I was on pcl-ag08.

[#8]

You can edit your hosts file or whatever to select 212.159.8.110 or 212.159.9.110 as appropriate for community.plus.net depending on which gateway you are on, but I don't think this makes much difference.

[#9]

As you suggest, it probably wouldn't make much difference, but wouldn't the load-balancers negate that anyway? It was more a case of wondering if the load-balancers affected different gateways differently for some strange reason?

[#10]

I'm not convinced that this is the application, databases or server, rather routing, load balancing, DNS.
There was a stunning improvement a few weeks ago when changes were made to the load balancers, but Kelly had the changes regressed due to a side effect.  I do not recall a clear update on what (if anything) has been progressed since.
I'm still receiving slow responses in general, when posting response hangs (even though the post was successful), page not found, server not responding, session time out and just nothing at all.
If PN want free contribution from forum members, please make it easier for us!  
Kevin

[#11]

I'm 90% sure the performance is the load balancer issue.  Fixing that exposed the issue with people appearing as one user and therefore triggering the flood protection.  We are talking with the LB vendors about this new issue.

[#12]

Kelly,
Thanks for the update.  However, this issue was identified weeks ago, exactly how are your discussions going with the vendors?  What is your support SLA with them?  When have they made a commitment to come back with a resolution?  Indeed who are they?  LB can be (but should not be) a black art.
When you answer, please remember that I've spent 35+ years in IT support and know exactly how this space should work - if we'd taken as long to respond to a customer issue as your vendors appear to have done, we'd not have had customers for very long!

Quote from: Kelly

... people appearing as one user and therefore triggering the flood protection...

That seems a bit bazar - the load balancer should establish a "fixed" connection for a given IP address to a given server in the pool and maintain that routing for the duration of the "session".  There by connectivity / identification should be unique.  Could this be a matter of not passing on the originating IP address to the forum application?
I'm making the "logical" assumption that it is the application which determines that there is a "flood" from a given IP address.  Therefore if all users appear to be the "same" user (IP address) then it must be the load balancer not passing on the source IP address - or am I barking again!
Kevin

[#13]

That's what I've been chasing for an update on.

[#14]

Are the load balancers even necessary?
The load is already being approximately halved between 212.159.8.110 and 212.159.9.110 by the random order of those IP addresses in the DNS answer for community.plus.net.
Then 212.159.9.110 is 84.93.230.186 and 84.93.230.178 behind a load balancer.
And 212.159.8.110 is 84.93.235.210 and 84.93.235.226 behind presumably another load balancer.
So there's two load balancers between them doing about half of the total load balancing work - the load already having been split before reaching either load balancer.
Considering the load balancer has been broken for a length of time that is probably years, would it really be so terrible if community.plus.net instead resolved to four different IP addresses? Perhaps the overall load would actually be less because there wouldn't be all those spurious packets being sent, and fewer connections hanging around in a waiting state which eventually timeout.

[#15]

Hi ejs,
I think there is a typo on the first set of secondary IP addresses.

Quote from: ejs

Then 212.159.9.110 is 84.93.230.178 and 84.93.230.178 behind a load balancer.

I cannot believe that the load on this service is so great that it needs 4 application servers / service instances to run it... unless this application is co-resident on shared platforms (IP addresses) so configured for resilience.
Whatever it does beg the question if these two load balancers are not working correctly for the forums, what else might they be fouling up (possibly of greater importance) within the business.
How difficult would it be to re-route / reconfigure the forum to avoid the use of the load balancers?

Kevin