Hi Lee,

My website has recently started to time out when i ask it to do simple things like apply a skin or a container to a page, it takes ages and then gives the error Page cannot be Displayed - 10060 - Connection timeout. Eventually after many attempts and lots of time sometimes it does apply it, seemingly when it feels like it!??

I was wondering if you had any ideas where to start to fix the problem, could it be a memory problem or has the database become corupt?

I thought it may be the way I built my skin as it was the first one i did and its not really efficient but I've tried applying the DDN-blue original skin and again it times out.

I've had no real problems before although its never been the quickest.

Many thanks, any help would be gratefully received!

 

I have come across this when my host has been having problems. It would be worth emailing your host to see if they are having any problems with their server.

Thanks,

My host say they aren't experiencing any problems with their servers but on closer inspection they carn't view my DNN error log. So they have moved me into a isolated app on the server. They say my site is still constantly recycling because its running out of memory this is not normal. It could be a skin bad code or module causing the issues.

They can offer me: to move your site first to a new server then your SQL db if you want to try this.
or do a restore back in time if you had no problems before a certain time but this would cost.

The skin and modules are the same ones I have been using fine until now...

What version of DNN are you using?

Problems like this have occurred for v3 but I haven't heard of them for v4.

In DNN 3 there were a few areas to check:
1) Sometimes the problem is caused by your log files growing too large.
2) Check the DNN Scheduler and stop the search process running - sometimes when it's a large site DNN can not index the site anymore
3) Check the scheduler and stop all processes - see if that solves it. - If it does enable them again one at a time to find the culprit
4) There was also an XML log file that you could delete, if it grew too large, this would cause memory problems. - I can't remember off the top of my head where it is stored, but if you need the info I will look it up.

It's worth Googling as it will bring up some key points which cover all of these areas. - Look for scheduler search problems / log files too large etc. and you should find the details you need.

If you haven't made any changes to your skins and modules and they definitely work ok, they are probably not the cause of your problems.

ok, in that case, make sure you Google around first to get as much info as possible - and create a backup of your current site before making any changes to the log files etc.

- The first thing I would try is to disable the scheduled tasks

Thanks,

My hosting company think this type of error is caused by a problem skin or module.

They said: the last guy they knew had loaded a gallery module on 4.02 and it had an error on his module once we found the log. He removed it and his problem resolved instantly. We get 100s of these same type of errors with DNn users a month and 99 of them are found to be a skin or module with a memory leak.

Re your last post I've now:
1) Turn off all schedules by Scheduler Mode to Disabled
2) Module caching to Disk
3) Site log storage to File System

4) **Then I changed heavy caching to none and then back again and I think it was at this point my website has gone down and i just get a runtime error now/ Server Error in '/' Application

5) Another suggestion was to purge my site log history manually to reduce the DB size 3 GB to 40 MB, how do you do this?

Maybe I need to restore to an earlier version for the moment...

Yes the site log history is the first thing i would get rid of at 3GB your database is massive, as a comparison the DNN C database is about 120MB. - When it was bloated due to logs it was 300MB.

You will need to log in to Enterprise Manager to access the logs tables and delete the data from there. - If you don't have access to that, your hosting provider may do it for you.

Once you get it up and running again the first thing is to check your logs and see if a module or skin is throwing problems.

- They are right that most of the time these problems are caused by bad programming.

Hi Lee,

Yesterday I hoped to be able to restore the site and then find out what had happened after but my host has been unable to restore the site the backups keep failing. They say its not to do with their backup process but a problem with whatever was effecting its performance previously. Most likely data is corrupt in the backup file and they pointed to the Bizmodules ultra photo gallery.

I've just ftp'd older backup files and am waiting to hear back from them as to whether they can restore it or not. It's very worrying when you think if something does go wrong you have a backup file to rely on when really you don't know whether it will work or not. The site is nearly a year old and I've been using the photo gallery since last April, my worry is that all my .bak files are somehow corrupt?

I'm at a loss what to do next really, any ideas?

Ps I havn't been able to get in to the site log history to get rid of it and i made a mistake the database is actually 0.25gb

Hi Jo,

Thanks for the extra info you sent, this situation has happened to me once with DNN Creative so i know what you are going through.

I managed to solve the problem by installing the backup files on my localhost test computer. The CPU instantly hit 100% and was operating very slowly, but because it was on my computer, I could let it run and investigate the problem, whereas the hosting providers would just take it down immediately as it was causing problems for their server.

So, with the test installation version, I began editing the tables and removing problem areas such as the site logs etc. - It turned out to be a problem with one of the modules, i had to delete the last entry to the module and it worked instantly with the CPU operating at the normal level.

I then re-installed the SQL database to the hosting provider and logged into the database to do the changes I did to my localhost test version and then managed to get the site running again.

I made a post here on how to restore a backup to a localhost installation. - You will need to manually add the portal alias of localhost into the database table to get your installation working at a localhost level.

Basically i found that the hosting providers can be really helpful, but they don't put in the amount of time investigating the problem that you need so you have to do it yourself and then tell them how they can fix it.

Good Luck and I hope one of your backups will work, thanks,

here's the link to the post that I mentioned:
http://www.dnncreative.com/Forum/ta...fault.aspx

Thanks so much for your help and support Lee, you are always very helpful!

My host has managed to restore a backup file from last March (the photo module was not installed then) while i feel relieved something is back up there, phew, but it still means 9 months work has been lost.

Hopefully I can restore it locally and take it from there?

You mention logging in manually to my live website Admin/Site settings and adding the portal alias of localhost into the database table to get my installation working at a localhost level but my live website is now very out of date??

Many thanks,
Jo

Hi Jo,

yes on the post that I linked to, you add the portal alias to the live website.  In your case you will need to take your most recent backup, restore the database to your localhost installation and then look for the table that contains the details for your portal alias.  In that table you can then add a new record and add a portal alias for your localhost installation.

For example, you will need to go to the portalalias table and add a record such as:

portable alias ID: 1
portal ID: 0
HTTP alias: localhost/mywebsitename

Hope this helps, thanks,

Hi Lee,
I've finally managed to set up a local server and following your instructions restored my latest .bak file from my live site to my local computer. After browsing the localhost/Name the site built itself and appeared to be working the same as the live one. Only one problem the links to the images don't work, have i missed a setting somewhere? i've deleted any unnecessary portal aliases and just have the local/Name alias now.
Cheers, Jo

Hi Jo,

I would check the URLs for the images, if they display the full URL, ie: http://www.mywebsite.com/image.gif these are linked to your live website. – If you are offline, they will not display.

Likewise, if you have a local link such as /foldername/image.gif and you have not transferred all of the data from your portal folder (ie. all of your images) then the images will also not display.

Thanks,

The URL for the images don't display the full url for example src="https://www.dnncreative.com/Portals/0/1.jpg"
All of my images are in the same folder structure which was copied over.
The only thing I've changed is wwwroot to a different name - I think this must be the problem?
Thanks alot... J

Hi,

I've just tried the same procedures with another ddn website and when I try to run the EXEC sp_ABRestoreDb command i get the following error:

Server: Msg 3205, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
Too many backup devices specified for backup or restore; only 64 are allowed.
Server: Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
RESTORE FILELIST is terminating abnormally.
Server: Msg 50000, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_ABRestoreDb, Line 457
Couldn't restore database A3250233 from file C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\BACKUP\A3250233.bak since the number/type of logical devices do not match.

I've tried the whole process a few times and just keep getting stuck at this point.
I'm running SQL Server 2000 on Windows Server 2003.

Have you come across this before?

thanks alot, J

Hey Lee:

I glommed onto this issue, since we've all had a problem from time to time with speed.  You definitely pointed out the two main issues:  logging and a poorly designed module.  Almost all the time I or one of the DNN folks I know has had a speed problem one of these two issues.

I am curious though, to know what the module was and what the data was that drapped down the speed of the site.  If you don't feel comfortable naming the module and/or data, could you PM me?

And I don't mean to hijack this thread.  Sorry Jean.  I am going to look into your problem in my next post...

Cheers
Andy H.

Hi Jean:

Can you tell me what your knowledge level is of SQL2K?  Please make sure you make a copy of your complete database before you do *anything*!

To create a copy of your database, take the following steps (I'm assuming you know SQL2K Enterprise Manager...if you don't I really wouldn't recommend running the below stored procedure).

1. Click Start->Programs->SQL Server 2000 -> Enterprise Manager (EM)
2. Once EM is running, click on the 'tree control' on the left side, and drill down to Databases->'Your DNN Database'. 
3. Right click on 'Your DNN Database' (whatever name you gave it).
4. Select All Tasks -> Detach Database
5. Step through the wizard and follow the instructions.  If there are users, I would log them out w/o a reply (the reply can take up to 20 minutes or so...so if this is a live site I would perform this task late at night or when the site is slow).
6. Your database is now detached and you can copy the actual files to have a true copy of the database.
7. Find out where SQL Server is storing the data.  The default is something like C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\8.0\SQL Data\ MSSQL\Data\ (I put my data in a different folder than the default, so there might not be a 'SQL Data' folder)
8. find the .mdf and one or more .ldf files that are named with your database name and copy them to another folder.

Now, one you have a copy of the database, you can reattach it and do whatever damage you want to it, knowing you have an exact copy which you can reattach if things get screwed up.

To re-attach a database do the following:

Repeat steps 1-2 above
3. Right click on the 'Databases' tree node
4. Select All Tasks -> Attach Database
5. Follow the wizard instructions.  The two important things to know here are that you know where the .mdf file is (which of course you have to know if you want to detach it and copy it!), and that you select the same db owner that you had before (this is not a critical thing, but helpful.  Just look in your web.config file and use whatever is *that* username as the db owner in the attach database wizard and you'll be good to go)

Unfortunately, I can't help you w/that stored proc, and I'm not sure if you are trying to make a backup or restore a previous backup.  Either way, even if you do not have access to EM, just tell your ISP to do the above, zip the copied mdf and ldf files up and put them in a folder on your site so you have this complete copy.

Hope this helps a little bit. 

Also Jean, to see exactly where the page thinks the broken images are, righ click on the 'x' and select 'Properties'.  Copy the URL of the image and post it here...that would give us the information we need to see how DNN is interpreting the paths...