We have been running Moodle successfully for about a year, but suddenly it keeps sort of stopping overnight. (The strange thing is we have 2 more servers with identical moodle set ups and they are both still fine, it is just this one).
By that I mean that the server is up and running, apache appears to be up and running (no errors like in this thread http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=51838) and mySQl appears to be running.
There are no obvious messages coming through.
If you put the address of the moodle into a browser it chugs for a while and then comes back with page cannot be found.
If you try to stop and restart MySQl it won't start.
If you reboot the server all is well, but this isn't terribly good having to reboot the server every morning.
We are using Windows 2003 server, Apache 2, php 5.2, Moodle 1.5.2, MySQl 4.1.9
Has anyone else run into this sort of thing and if so how did you cure it please?
Thanks
Heather
Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
Number of replies: 9Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
Best bet for better understanding this problem is to look at the system and application logs under Administrative Tools -> System Management. See if you are getting fatal errors from Apache (not the Apache logs as in your cited thread). If Apache is failing, you will probably be able to see the module from the log and you can search on that to find a solution.
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
No, there are no fatal errors for Apache in the Event viewer, system or application. In fact there don't appear to be any fatal errors for anything at all.
I'm not convinced it is the appache, but I'm open to persuasion.
I've tried restarting the MySql service in this situation and it won't stop and it won't restart. We then end up rebooting and all is well.
I think my biggest issue is not knowing enough about anything to actually be looking in the right place!
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep pottering at it and I'm sure the light will shine eventually!
Heather
I'm not convinced it is the appache, but I'm open to persuasion.
I've tried restarting the MySql service in this situation and it won't stop and it won't restart. We then end up rebooting and all is well.
I think my biggest issue is not knowing enough about anything to actually be looking in the right place!
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep pottering at it and I'm sure the light will shine eventually!
Heather
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
Heather
If the problem manifests itself overnight, one place to start looking is in the Scheduled Tasks. Are there any jobs scheduled in there and could possibly be overrunning? Take a look at the Properties -> Settings tab and, as an example, set them to stop after say 4hrs. I suppose that another thing to do is look back through any changes that have been made on the server - but that would depend on how well you document changes on the moodle server.
Ken
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
The only thing in the scheduled tasks section are MySql backups and these haven't changed since it was working.
I think my problem lies in that I know what I have done to Moodle and MySql but I have no way of knowing what the server team is doing to the server in terms of patching Windows and so forth.
I have a suspicion it may well be either a network backup or windows patching causing my problems now, but I don't know how to track down what exactly is going on.
I think I was hoping someone else would have had the same issue and could narrow my field of search.
Thanks for your help.
Heather
I think my problem lies in that I know what I have done to Moodle and MySql but I have no way of knowing what the server team is doing to the server in terms of patching Windows and so forth.
I have a suspicion it may well be either a network backup or windows patching causing my problems now, but I don't know how to track down what exactly is going on.
I think I was hoping someone else would have had the same issue and could narrow my field of search.
Thanks for your help.
Heather
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
I've seen Windows backups sporatically lock a system up. Are there any errors at all in the Windows event log? Are you able to ping your router, see your network or surf once this has happened (could be a network/nic failure)? I'd shut down backups, reboot and watch it for a single night. If you are backing up to a network location ensure your backup target has sufficient space (although normally Windows is good about alerting to a failed backup in such an instance). Is this a Windows NT, 2000 or 2003 server? I'd almost bet on it being 2003.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
PHP access violation error is also a possibility. Typically the user who generates the error will have it displayed, but for everyone else, it's just a blank screen. No error message, nothing. Also, this does not generate errors within the Windows logs. We have been having this problem in a number of different versions of PHP (including the current one) and are now just about to switch to Apache, because the downtime is unacceptable.
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
It is a Windows 2003 server. Yes we can ping the server, we can even use termianl services to get onto it to set off the reboot, we just can't access Moodle in the usual way.
I shall investigate the backups, it seems a strong contender.
Thanks
I shall investigate the backups, it seems a strong contender.
Thanks
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
> Has anyone else run into this sort of thing and if so how did you cure it please?
Can somebody enlighten me on how this is related to "Servers and Performance", please?
Can somebody enlighten me on how this is related to "Servers and Performance", please?
Re: Moodle becomes inaccessible overnight
I posted it to this forum as I am pretty sure it is a server issue that I have and none of the other forums except maybe the 'General Developer' forum seemed a likely candidate.
I'm open to it being in the wrong forum although it is definitely a performance issue - it isn't performing at all when it stops and it is probably stopping because of some sort of server issue.
The server itself is a Windows 2003 server with Quad xeon processors and 4gb Ram so I'm fairly sure it is up to handling the traffic we are sending at it but something is impacting on the performance.
Thanks
Heather
I'm open to it being in the wrong forum although it is definitely a performance issue - it isn't performing at all when it stops and it is probably stopping because of some sort of server issue.
The server itself is a Windows 2003 server with Quad xeon processors and 4gb Ram so I'm fairly sure it is up to handling the traffic we are sending at it but something is impacting on the performance.
Thanks
Heather