Problems with the PHP upgrade

Today, we had a few issues with the recent PHP upgrade that was causing empty 'no data received' error messages, timeouts and freezes. After working through the issues, it looks like there are incompatibilities in the way the forum handles sessions that caused the problems.

For the time being, I stepped back the PHP version to what it was before all of the problems started. Hopefully, the problems should be fixed until I can further test the newest version of PHP and work out the bugs. If you're still having issues, you might want to clear your browsers cache to see if it helps.

If you're having any problems with the website, feel free to send me a PM or use the contact form and I'll try to address the problem ASAP.

The Vinyl Audio Team

NEVER upgrade your version of PHP unless you absolutely have to. Two weeks ago, the hosting company 'suggested' that I upgrade all of my domains to a newer version of PHP (v5.3.x), so without thinking, I clicked 'upgrade'. That proved to be a big mistake. The problem is, I'm using a redirected, alternate, 'cloned' php.ini file which increases the upload_max_filesize, post_max_size and memory_limit variables. Increasing those limits allows larger files to be uploaded through the forum. The problem is, the script I used to redirect the PHP server to my revised file copied the original php.ini file and when I upgraded the version of PHP, my revised file (being older) does not comply with the parameters of the newest version, so everything came to a screeching halt.

On top of that, SMF doesn't like PHP v5.3.x  - I was getting all sorts of random parsing errors that I never seen before the upgrade. After doing some research and asking other webmasters, they suggested I skip PHP 5.3.x and try 5.4.x. If the fixes I made don't work, I may go that route.

I rolled back the version of PHP, but I'm still getting random freezes and timeouts, much like a year ago when Dreamhost was going through its infamous server reliability issues. Now, after a year of nearly trouble free, (mostly) reliable and fast server speeds, I'm back to nothing but problems.   

The moral of the story is that - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

This morning, we had another major website outage. It's back up again, but the reliability is highly questionable. According to the hosting company, the server is having 'stability issues', most likely a bad memory stick or a failing hard drive. They are monitoring the situation and said if it gets worse, they may have to move the site to another server.

If the site goes down again, check the Facebook page for news and updates.

Thanks!

Another quick update - I'm currently backing up the entire site and will be asking our hosting provider to move us to another server. It seems like this server is still having reliability issues; or it's being overloaded by another shared user. Hopefully, the move will improve the speed and reliability of the site.

I'll post an update when I know for sure when the move will happen.

Thanks!

Thanks for the great effort