AskMe RSS Problems July 22, 2006 4:47 PM Subscribe
Just to keep you up to date, the AskMe RSS feed was invalid at
- Wed Jul 19 22:00 EST
- Thu Jul 20 08:00 EST
- Thu Jul 20 08:30 EST
- Thu Jul 20 09:00 EST
- Thu Jul 20 10:00 EST
- Thu Jul 20 15:00 EST
- Fri Jul 21 05:00 EST
- Fri Jul 21 05:30 EST
- Fri Jul 21 06:00 EST
- Fri Jul 21 06:30 EST
- Fri Jul 21 07:00 EST
- Sat Jul 22 09:30 EST
- Sat Jul 22 10:00 EST
Do you have a copy for those feeds at those times? Because there has been some downtime lately, and I bet half or more of those are server unavailable errors and not invalid feed or empty feed errors.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:06 PM on July 22, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:06 PM on July 22, 2006
I don't have them here, but I do at work and I'll check them out tomorrow.
When the server's unavailable, that's when the page says "Connection Error" or whatever?
Because when you look at the feed at those times, it doesn't time out, it instantly gives you that message.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:22 PM on July 22, 2006
When the server's unavailable, that's when the page says "Connection Error" or whatever?
Because when you look at the feed at those times, it doesn't time out, it instantly gives you that message.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:22 PM on July 22, 2006
No, this would be a server completely down condition, so you wouldn't see any sort of error message. The connection would just never be completed.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:43 PM on July 22, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:43 PM on July 22, 2006
"Just to keep you up to date, the AskMe RSS feed was invalid at..."
May I offer you a Kleenex?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:05 PM on July 22, 2006
May I offer you a Kleenex?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:05 PM on July 22, 2006
davis, I have no idea what that means. If it's supposed to be funny, then, you know, ha ha.
matthowie, the feed is "invalid" if it reads "Connection Failed" because that's not, obviously, valid XML -- it fails with the message "syntax error line 1 char 0" because XML files can't start with text, only with tags, of course.
It's definitely been the case before that the server is outputting a file with the right content-type and a success HTTP code, 200 or whatever, but the content of the file isn't what it's supposed to be. I haven't yet seen an error which involved a 404 or a 408.
I'll let you have the details when I get back to work, less than 24 hours from now.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:48 PM on July 22, 2006
matthowie, the feed is "invalid" if it reads "Connection Failed" because that's not, obviously, valid XML -- it fails with the message "syntax error line 1 char 0" because XML files can't start with text, only with tags, of course.
It's definitely been the case before that the server is outputting a file with the right content-type and a success HTTP code, 200 or whatever, but the content of the file isn't what it's supposed to be. I haven't yet seen an error which involved a 404 or a 408.
I'll let you have the details when I get back to work, less than 24 hours from now.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:48 PM on July 22, 2006
What on earth is that graphic, cillit bang?
I don't know how to read it but if red == down, and I'm reading the strokes right, then MeFi was down between eleven and twelve.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 9:27 PM on July 22, 2006
I don't know how to read it but if red == down, and I'm reading the strokes right, then MeFi was down between eleven and twelve.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 9:27 PM on July 22, 2006
On that graph, why do so many of the little red slits line up? It looks like the server regularly goes down twice a day, at the exact same time each day.
posted by reklaw at 5:41 AM on July 23, 2006
posted by reklaw at 5:41 AM on July 23, 2006
The server reboots at 9 am and 9 pm EST, IIRC.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:35 AM on July 23, 2006
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:35 AM on July 23, 2006
It's something I created a while ago to see whether MeFI was down more than it was up (back when it possibly was). Green is HTTP 200, red is failed, peach is timed out and grey is data missing (problem with my server). It's tests the main front page only. It uses HEAD so it doesn't waste bandwidth.
posted by cillit bang at 8:31 AM on July 23, 2006
posted by cillit bang at 8:31 AM on July 23, 2006
OK I've checked out the downloaded files, and the last sixteen times it's been busted [see below] it's been exactly the same thing. An eighteen-byte file consisting of the words "Connection Failure".
Before that I had one "unclosed CDATA" but that was actually a truncated version of a perfectly valid file as far as I can see, so we can ignore that one.
All times EST:
Before that I had one "unclosed CDATA" but that was actually a truncated version of a perfectly valid file as far as I can see, so we can ignore that one.
All times EST:
- Sun Jul 23 09:00:01
- Sat Jul 22 10:00:01
- Sat Jul 22 09:30:02
- Fri Jul 21 07:00:02
- Fri Jul 21 06:30:03
- Fri Jul 21 06:00:01
- Fri Jul 21 05:30:02
- Fri Jul 21 05:00:01
- Thu Jul 20 15:00:02
- Thu Jul 20 10:00:02
- Thu Jul 20 09:00:02
- Thu Jul 20 08:30:03
- Thu Jul 20 08:00:02
- Wed Jul 19 22:00:01
- Wed Jul 19 06:00:01
- Wed Jul 19 05:30:02
This comment remains invalid.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:53 PM on July 23, 2006
posted by blue_beetle at 4:53 PM on July 23, 2006
INVALID
posted by blue_beetle at 4:53 PM on July 23, 2006
posted by blue_beetle at 4:53 PM on July 23, 2006
The previous comment is invalid.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:53 PM on July 23, 2006
posted by blue_beetle at 4:53 PM on July 23, 2006
"The server reboots at 9 am and 9 pm EST, IIRC."
Clearly, with its high availability and extended uptimes, Windows is the platform of choice for production web application servers.
posted by majick at 5:52 PM on July 23, 2006
Clearly, with its high availability and extended uptimes, Windows is the platform of choice for production web application servers.
posted by majick at 5:52 PM on July 23, 2006
The server doesn't reboot actually, the coldfusion service starts. The windows boxes have actually been up for several months without a reboot.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:07 AM on July 24, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:07 AM on July 24, 2006
My bad, sorry. Most of the time you won't even notice the restarting.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:22 AM on July 24, 2006
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:22 AM on July 24, 2006
Ok, Ambrose, I put in another check before empty files get written, so things should be good again. Go ahead and EMAIL ME if you see another failure, so I can work on it immediately.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:26 AM on July 24, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:26 AM on July 24, 2006
Will do. It now checks every half an hour and emails me so I'll just forward it if it happens. And thanks.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:49 PM on July 24, 2006
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:49 PM on July 24, 2006
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
If I go to "new post" I get the message explaining why I can't post
"You've posted something here in the past week. There is a limit of one new MetaTalk post per week, which you've used up. Make them count, because you'll only get one every 4 days."
So, which is it? A week or four days?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:49 PM on July 22, 2006