Pages Wont Load / Apache Restart Fixes this... can I avoid this?

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Partially Broken Zen Cart: Frequent Apache Restarts fix it...
Can I permanently fix this? Not just temporarily?

Here's the situation...

I've been testing zen cart on a dedicated linux server & I am frequently getting errors where the pages hang 20 seconds or more before loading (there's other sites on the server, but each has their own settings & none are are zen related, and my need for apache restarts only happened when I added zen cart...).

The pages will hang nearly indefinitely, and in fact, sometimes my admin panel can only load blank mySQL pages.

I don't know what causes this, or even what to search for...

An apache reboot through plesk temporarily corrects the error. However, the error repeats at least every 24 hours and usually much more often--I then have to once again, log into the admin & restart the Apache.

If I don't restart apache, the zen cart site does not function properly (it hangs on page loads, admin panel will not even load/ admin .php pages load as blank pages in my browser, etc)

Strangely enough, sometimes the problem carries over to another admin panel, on another site, on a different ip/ on another part of the server...

Any ideas?

I just wonder what setting I might have that an apache restart could possibly correct.. that may give me a clue as to what is causing the error/ not letting pages load...

[kobra]

This is a Zen Cart forum and not a Linux webmaster forum - -

But this sounds to be a .cnf configuration issue - what apache mods are you using?

Actually, if Zen Cart on your server is taking over 5 sec's to parse a page you have more severe configuration issues of your LAMP setup and really need to optimize it for php/mysql.

Zen Cart on a well configured server should parse in the 1 sec range

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

This is a Zen Cart forum and not a Linux webmaster forum - -

But this sounds to be a .cnf configuration issue - what apache mods are you using?

Actually, if Zen Cart on your server is taking over 5 sec's to parse a page you have more severe configuration issues of your LAMP setup and really need to optimize it for php/mysql.

Zen Cart on a well configured server should parse in the 1 sec range

On the apache, I'm not sure--whatever the host gave me as defaults, I'm sure I could look it up.. its a fedora server ...

I think there's some confusion here though..

the MySQL is optimized & pages instantly load.

But--for some reason, with zen cart on the server, I get these times where it basically can't load any pages in my zen cart. The fix is to restart apache--I was hoping to see if anyone had a similar issue/ see what they did to fix it.

I've got a 1.3.8 zen cart, with just a few mods... I don't even use attributes, and I'm still in a test phase with only a few sku's in the shop.

I'm going to probably have to put the site on a zen certified host--I guess I was hoping there was nothing strange in my cart causing this... I don't want the same thing to happen anyway if i switch to a certified host configured for zen cart.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Hey--a linux webmaster forum would probably just send me here ;)

[DrByte]

What operating system version? What kernel level is it at?
How much RAM in the server? How is it allocated to the various LAMP processes?
What version of Apache?
What Apache mods are enabled?
What version of PHP do you have running?
What version of MySQL?
Are all of them patched appropriately?
Who manages their configuration?



What happens if you install a fresh clean uncustomized copy of Zen Cart in another folder+database, and test performance using the uncustomized folder only?

For a couple reasons, I'm inclined to agree with kobra that your server's configuration is likely the issue:
- with a million downloads of Zen Cart, there are only two threads on the forum that mention symptoms like you describe
- with people using the many various mods available but not reporting these issues, the likelihood of those mods being primary contributors is limited (but should still be explored, hence my suggestion above)

I suppose there's a remote chance that it could be the server hardware.

[DrByte]

Hey--a linux webmaster forum would probably just send me here ;)

Yes, they likely would.
Or, they could give you tips on how to get apache to tell you why it was freezing and maybe how to identify which processes were the main contributors to the crashes you're experiencing.
Or they could give you tips on comparing your apache+php+mysql configurations vs best-practice configurations and even default configurations ... to see where your server configs might be bad.


Lest you turn the table and say the same about Zen Cart, the fastest way to narrow down whether you've got bad settings in your Zen Cart configuration is to do a clean fresh new uncustomized install, as I mentioned earlier.
Additionally, if you were to compile a list of which pages it is crashing on, maybe you'll find a pattern of consistency ... which could be used to narrow down what may be the cause. Certain pages do some things which are more complex than others. Knowing about patterns would be useful for isolating the issues.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Ok, awesome advice dr byte.. I'm going to check through all those issues... maybe my server has some seriously bad settings...

I'll reply soon with all my server stats/ settings.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

<div class="smallText center">Parse Time: 0.125 - Number of Queries: 47 - Query Time: 0.041730705490112</div>

See, generally this is how my server runs.. lightning fast...

[kobra]

dontknowwhatimdoing,

See, generally this is how my server runs.. lightning fast...

Yes fast, but not doing much with only 47 queries - What a well configed server will do when loaded and performing many queries

Parse Time: 0.125 - Number of Queries: 47 - Query Time: 0.041730705490112

Parse Time: 0.849 - Number of Queries: 4378 - Query Time: 0.45065405099487

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Hey all, it turned out the server had bad ram.

This explains why nothing I could do would fix it.