500 internal server error when posting

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Oziphantom
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by Oziphantom »

I just had a new case. Typically every post I make gets the 500 error. However I just had it "not 500" me but take me to the "somebody has already posted you might want to look at it" where said post was the one I was making. It seems the system may be double adding each post and the 2nd one is what causes the error..
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koitsu
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by koitsu »

The system is not trying to double-add anything (per se). It's a manifestation of the back-end problem. Phrased more simply:

1. Type new response (i.e. a Reply)
2. Click Post (or Preview then Post)
3. Browser will sit there saying "Waiting for..." and never come back with the usual "Thanks for your post" confirmation
4. Open new tab and open up thread, OR, click back in existing tab (the one that's "Waiting for...")
5. Click Preview (or view the thread as stated)
6. You will see your post

The situation is different on brand new posts (not replies). But again, as I said, this is all a manifestation of the back-end problem. Once that gets solved, all of this weirdness will stop.

There is a bigger problem here. WhoaMan is still MIA. He also owns the nesdev.com domain, so even doing something like moving off of his hosting and onto something self-managed or actively maintained isn't an option. Memblers/Tepples need to think about that.
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rainwarrior
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by rainwarrior »

I've been getting this problem every time I post for a few days now.
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tokumaru
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by tokumaru »

Since this is happening with basically every post now, what I've been doing is I click on "submit", then a few seconds later I click on "preview" to make sure my post has gone through, since it shows as a new post that has been made, just to skip the pointless waiting and the error page. I also copy the whole post before submitting, just in case, but so far every post has gone through without problems.
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krzysiobal
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by krzysiobal »

I am experiencing the problem for 1-2 weeks too. When sending "sumbit" in response to PM message, it just waits but going back to the message outbox shows that it was sent.
Posting on public forum does not cause trouble.

Looks like the last sentence was false - it also hang up while replying to this topic, but as I can see, the message was sent.
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NESHomebrew
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by NESHomebrew »

Happened to me today when sending a PM. Did anyone actually get in contact with WhoaMan?
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tokumaru
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by tokumaru »

Hahaha I was just posting to say that the problem wasn't happening to me anymore after a number of consecutive successful posts, but this post in particular triggered the problem again, so, never mind.
Drag
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by Drag »

I noticed this too. Thankfully, posts seem to go through without issues, it's just that the page never advances to the "Post submitted successfully!" screen.

I have experience maintaining ASP.NET code running on IIS, and several small PHP scripts running on a LAMP server, and my intuition tells me that, since the post reaches the database but the page never redirects correctly, some function call in the PHP script responsible for posting a new reply is timing out, which would cause a 500 error, since the PHP script isn't "finishing" correctly.

Also, since NesDev has been experiencing email issues lately, it's not a stretch to suspect that bad SMTP settings could cause some kind of SendEmailNotification() function in PHP to block and then time out. If phpBB has a way to disable email notifications, see if disabling them fixes posting replies to threads here, and that can be an easy thing to confirm or rule out.

Edit: Editing a post doesn't cause a 500, so I'm thinking it's notifications or something like that.
nocash
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by nocash »

Another problem: It looks as if nesdev.com was completely down today and yesterday.
Except, yesterday afternoon (central european time) it worked for a brief moment.
And, today it didn't work either until about 16:00 cet.
homepage - patreon - you can think of a bit as a bottle that is either half full or half empty
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TmEE
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by TmEE »

I experienced some inaccessibility too earlier today and yesterday evening.
Posting also produces the gateway timeout error after a while, the post itself always gets sent though.
Drag
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by Drag »

Site was down for me too, last night and most of today, which is a little concerning when your sysadmin seems to be awol. :P
Rahsennor
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by Rahsennor »

I was hoping the downtime yesterday was because someone was finally getting these problems straightened out. Where the heck is WhoaMan? I hope nothing serious has happened to him...
nocash
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by nocash »

Yes, I hope that he's fine, too! At the moment, it's been mostly koitsu saying that there is a problem and that we can't contact WhoaMan. That makes me wonder about a couple of things...

Is it normal that WhoaMan is disappearing for a couple of months, or is that uncommon?
Is he really the one-and-only person with all nesdev passwords & server access rights?
Did anyone manage to contact him & knows what's up?
If not, did anyone already try to contact him... via PM, email, phone, door bell...?
Can the other forum staff people confirm if there is a problem?
If there's a problem: Is it known if the server fees are still being paid?

Maybe someone could help if we knew more about was already done, and if there's a problem at all.
homepage - patreon - you can think of a bit as a bottle that is either half full or half empty
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Memblers
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by Memblers »

I only know WhoaMan from the forum, and must have been IRC in the past. It is normal for him to not be around on the forum, but he's been in the community for what must at least 15 years by now, I remember the game Hot Logic he made is at least that old.

I believe he said the server was related to his work, so I'd assume he's doing OK and is in the same business, since we're still here.

As far as I know, he's the only one with full access. I make backup copies for the forum database occasionally, and I believe there is a backup of the wiki, but that's something that I don't have myself, so it would be great to verify that.

I tried sending an email to him while the server was down, it was an old email address so I don't know if he monitors it, I haven't heard back.
Drag
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Re: 500 internal server error when posting

Post by Drag »

Testing, testing, I was literally just able to make a post in another thread without it timing out...

Edit: Nope, still timed out here. It did not time out in that other thread though, I really think it's notification-related.
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