What can cause occasional blank watchlists?

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Apache KeepAlive on or off?

Tentative specs for MW releases

David Gerard

13 Oct 2012 13 Oct '12

1:35 p.m.

I'm getting reports on rationalwiki.org of occasional blank watchlists. The symptoms are that a completely empty page loads immediately. It's running 1.19.1 in Ubuntu 10.04 with Apache 2.2.14-ubuntu. Of course, I changed *two* things last night: (a) cut max memory for PHP from 256MB to 64MB (b) switched off KeepAlive in Apache. (I'm quite keen to keep both of these, as the server CPU and memory went *right* down.) The confusing thing is the Apache logs don't show any "200 0" for Special:Watchlist, at all. So either it's serving something that renders as a blank page, or something before Apache, which should be nothing whatsoever, is showing a blank page. I see a few "200 0" for other pages. A bit over 1% of all connections give a 408 request timeout - but the request timeout is 300 seconds, which is quite huge enough. I've asked people having the problem to email me with their IP and the time, so I can go log-grovelling. But has anyone else seen this, and what caused it? - d.

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Dave Humphrey

13 Oct 13 Oct

2:24 p.m.

By "empty page" I assume you mean a completely white/empty page that you get when the MediaWiki crashes/breaks? You should get an entry in the Apache error log (different from the access log) when this happens. If you aren't you may wish to check the "error_reporting" in php.ini to ensure it is set to an appropriate level. I have mine set at E_ALL which can result in large logs over time but it does catch a variety of minor warnings which are sometimes useful in diagnosing other related problems. If you change this setting make sure you restart Apache to apply the settings. On 13 October 2012 09:35, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

-- Dave Humphrey -- dave(a)uesp.net Founder/Server Admin of the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages -- www.uesp.net

David Gerard

5:43 p.m.

On 13 October 2012 15:24, Dave Humphrey <dave(a)uesp.net> wrote:

...

On 13 October 2012 09:35, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

> I'm getting reports on rationalwiki.org of occasional blank > watchlists. The symptoms are that a completely empty page loads > immediately. It's running 1.19.1 in Ubuntu 10.04 with Apache > 2.2.14-ubuntu. > The confusing thing is the Apache logs don't show any "200 0" for > Special:Watchlist, at all. So either it's serving something that > renders as a blank page, or something before Apache, which should be > nothing whatsoever, is showing a blank page. I see a few "200 0" for > other pages. A bit over 1% of all connections give a 408 request > timeout - but the request timeout is 300 seconds, which is quite huge > enough.

...

It shows up in the access log as a 500, e.g. [IP number] - - [13/Oct/2012:08:59:18 -0400] "GET /wiki/Special:Watchlist HTTP/1.1" 500 308 "http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Technical_support" "[browser agent string]" - that apparently renders blank. This doesn't show anything in the Apache or PHP error log around this time either. Most frustrating ... I've turned up the logging a bit. - d.

David Gerard

8:10 p.m.

On 13 October 2012 18:43, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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>> I'm getting reports on rationalwiki.org of occasional blank >> watchlists. The symptoms are that a completely empty page loads

Here's the on-wiki discussion: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Technical_support#Blank_watchlist - d.

John

8:17 p.m.

You might check the size of their watch lists too On Saturday, October 13, 2012, David Gerard wrote:

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On 13 October 2012 18:43, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote:

>> I'm getting reports on rationalwiki.org of occasional blank >> watchlists. The symptoms are that a completely empty page loads

Here's the on-wiki discussion: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Technical_support#Blank_watchlist - d. _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

David Gerard

9:39 p.m.

On 13 October 2012 14:35, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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SOLVED - by upping max memory from 64MB to 96MB. Dunno what was breaking, but the users with the problem are reporting they can get a watchlist now. (Tangentially, I see a pile of PHP errors concerning LiquidThreads running out of memory, and we still use the awful thing. Even though I'd happily set it on fire. Is it known to be pretty fat with memory?) - d.

Chad

14 Oct 14 Oct

10:49 p.m.

On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 5:39 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 13 October 2012 14:35, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

SOLVED - by upping max memory from 64MB to 96MB. Dunno what was breaking, but the users with the problem are reporting they can get a watchlist now.

Indeed. You're probably fixing some other bugs as well by upping that limit. Really, PHP should have about 100M of memory available to it to run MediaWiki. We're a memory hog, but hey, them's the breaks.

...

(Tangentially, I see a pile of PHP errors concerning LiquidThreads running out of memory, and we still use the awful thing. Even though I'd happily set it on fire. Is it known to be pretty fat with memory?)

I don't know of any specific complaints about LQT w.r.t memory, but generally speaking, more extensions -> more memory needed. -Chad