"freezing" on the preview/post

[michael c]

several times lately i have tried to post something and when i go to either preview or post it the board "freezes" and i get that annoying little hourglass.

i then have to log-off the forum and lose the post.trying to post the same thoughts again isn't that easy or fun.

what's this all about?

[Jackie]

I had this problem last night while trying to post too.  I thought it might be heavy traffic on the board.  I logged off for the night.  But this has been happening lately more and more.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The delays are happening because our host has been experiencing heavy loads on the MySQL server from time to time. Unfortunately, any action that needs to access the database (which is almost everything) can be affected. And also unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing we can do about it because it's all in our host's hands. 

Even when experiencing delays, posts do through - eventually. However, if anyone is afraid they might lose what they've written, the best thing to do until our host straightens things out is click your cursor in the posting window and then highlight your entire post while you're waiting (choosing "Select All" from your browser's "Edit" menu will do it the quickest) and then copy/paste your text into a program like Notepad, Wordpad, Word, etc. That way, IF you feel you need to log out and then back in again, the text of your post can easy be pasted back into the posting window to try again.

[michael c]

curiouser and curiouser...

tonight when trying to read this very topic i got kicked-off the board due to a "busy or broken server".

yet when i managed to log back in it appeared that i had remained logged in the whole time(judging by the "time logged in" totals).

anyways thanks mysterious.i hope the tone of this topic was not too snarky.having recently suffered a nasty computer virus anything "wierd" that happens while online freaks me out.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

tonight when trying to read this very topic i got kicked-off the board due to a "busy or broken server".

Is this the error you received?

Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.

That one is perfectly normal and comes up fairly frequently. As it says, it just means that the MySQL database server is busy - and thankfully it passes quickly. But I've never seen an error that mentioned a "broken server." If you get that again, could you please post exactly what it said in this topic. It would be fascinating to see what our host's response would be to that.

yet when i managed to log back in it appeared that i had remained logged in the whole time(judging by the "time logged in" totals).

The whole thing is a bit complicated to get into so I'll try to keep this as simple as possible. The forum's system is actually broken up into two main parts - one that handles how the forum itself is run, and one that stores all the forum's information. They often interact with one another - but they don't always have to. The reason the system considered that you were still logged in despite the problem with the database is because the system didn't need to access the database to keep you logged in, but it would have needed to access the database to log you out. It all has to do with what's known as your session. Your session stayed active, most probably because the system was unable to contact the database to cancel it. However, it would only have stayed active for 15 minutes after the time you were last active on the forum.

[Lydia]

I got the "busy or broken server" message about the same time that mscbryk did, when I was trying to post.  It was not the usual "Sorry, SMF was unable to connect" message.  If I see it again, I'll copy it - but I hope I don't!

[MagnusTrask]

Right-click is disabled on this board, and I can't find an icon on the posting screen for "copy".    Is there some keyboard thing I'm supposed to do, to copy text?    I know little about the keyboard.

PS-- I might be able to save the entire page, but that seems drastic and takes up a lot of space, I guess.

[Midnite]

I can't find an icon on the posting screen for "copy".    Is there some keyboard thing I'm supposed to do, to copy text?    I know little about the keyboard.

Highlight the text, and in your browser menu click Edit, then select Copy (later, Paste).  They keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste.

[loril54]

 Here is an addition. Make sure that your mouse is set up correctly. I just tried to do the copy  and it worked for me. It is not like word where you can copy just by clicking on the side you have to highlight by draging the mouse  pointer over the words and then right click do copy and then paste. If you have a long post you can always do it in a word document and then copy paste it to the board also. I have done that also.

[MagnusTrask]

This is a test.  I am typing on my personal documents screen.

I copied:  Highlight the text, and in your browser menu click Edit, then select Copy (later, Paste).  They keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste.

Okay, that worked.  Thanks.

[Lydia]

I got the "busy or broken server" message about the same time that mscbryk did, when I was trying to post.  It was not the usual "Sorry, SMF was unable to connect" message.  If I see it again, I'll copy it - but I hope I don't!

I got the following message several times just now, and it may have been what I saw before.

Internal Server Error

Process limit exceeded for uid 10131 [24 >= 24].
   

[MagnusTrask]

Me too, just now.  I figured that just meant the board was popular.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Yes, that error pops up whenever the MySQL server is running a bit slow (which is was for a short time earlier) and the forum's processes back up because too many people are here.