RE: Debugging MediaWiki crash in PHP Earlier: "...[how] to determine the cause of a MediaWiki crash "PHP has encountered an Access Violation at 77FCC2C0"

Peter Blaise responds:

I just did some reading at Google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=PHP+has+encountered+an+Access+Viola tion+at+77FCC2C0&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=77FCC2C0&btnG=Google+Search

Sounds like an illegal instruction trying to do something in a memory address that can't be done - perhaps a corrupt executable or dll dynamic link library.

You can try rebooting clean and unloading any non-needed programs (even ant virus) and see if the problem goes away.

Also, reboot in safe mode and clean out all cache and temp files, and scandisk the drive, reboot, and try again.

You may have to replace corrupt programming wherever it is - hard to find. Operating system? Drivers? Utilities? Web server? PHP? Extensions?

There are many memory scanners (including debug) that may allow you to browse and identify what's sometimes (emphasis on "sometimes") located at 77FCC2C0, but I suspect that what's there changes whimsically, and it's a meaningless error message - most are.

You could also have a real bad memory chip that you can swap or remove, or messed up CMOS, which you can update. I'd r&r remove and reinstall all computer parts, clean connections, leave the cabinet open and add big fan to keep it cool to test. Everything in the computer may be capable, but perhaps the power supply is under-powering the memory chips, or other accessory is draining too much power - remove unused accessories (modem, sound card).

Threshold problems like this are not processional to troubleshoot. I've had to work on everything, one step at a time, and sometimes moving to an entirely new computer turns out easier.

Is it time to migrate to a new computer, rebuild the current server, and implement it as a backup anyway? Take advantage of the crash to buy new.

Let us know.

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Re: MediaWiki Error on Windows Earlier: :...[help with] nasty systems log error...in Windows:

9/24/2007 12:40:07 PM WAM Error None 204 N/A WWW-STL-52 The HTTP server encountered an unhandled exception while processing the ISAPI Application ' wam!WAM_REQ_CORE::GetSz(unsigned long)const + 0x51 php5isapi + 0x1172 wam!DllCanUnloadNow + 0x636 wam!DllCanUnloadNow + 0x20C w3svc!HTTP_HEADERS::FindValue(char const *,unsigned long *) + 0xE2 w3svc!STR::Copy(char const *,unsigned long) + 0xC71 w3svc!STR::Copy(char const *,unsigned long) + 0xB49 w3svc!STR::Copy(char const *,unsigned long) + 0x9A2 w3svc!CLIENT_CONN::OnSessionStartup(int *,void *,unsigned long,int) + 0x642 w3svc!HTTP_HEADERS::Reset(void) + 0x1CA w3svc!IIS_SERVER_INSTANCE::LockThisForWrite(void) + 0x63C w3svc!IIS_SERVER_INSTANCE::LockThisForWrite(void) + 0x5AF ISATQ!_AtqWriteSocket@16 + 0x218 ISATQ!CDirMonitor::RemoveEntry(class CDirMonitorEntry *) + 0x13A + 0x7B0EEF7A

Peter Blaise responds:

I just did some MORE reading at Google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=HTTP+server+encountered+an+unhandle d+exception+while+processing+the+ISAPI+Application&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wam%21DllCanUnloadNow&btnG=Goog... earch

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=w3svc%21STR%3A%3A&btnG=Google+S... h

... and so on. You could read, read, read everyone else's reports on seeing similar error message lines, but I do not think you'll find a quick and simple answer like, "Put the balls on the other side."!

What system log? Who's error report? This feels the same as above [RE: Debugging MediaWiki crash in PHP] above. You may be in for a serious reinstall ... AFTER carefully and thoroughly confirming that every piece and part in the system is perfect, not intermittent, and not part of a cascade failure (like an overheating video chip overloading the power supply and causing the hard drive to miswrite data - I'm on my 4th computer and now have a 9 inch fan flowing on it!).

The first think I do is remove the hard driven, copy it to a spare, and then work from there. Really, though, installing fresh on another machine and migrating may be worth consideration. 25 wikis, eh? What's the plan for bringing them back up after the server fries? Now's the time to develop one and implement it!

Let us know how it goes.