CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Questions/Support/Help

ERROR: Could not establish a database connection

(32 posts)
  • Started 6 years ago by Snowy
  • Latest reply from fimm
  • This topic is not resolved

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  1. Snowy
    Member

    I've had this error a few times today both at work and at home. Just thought the admins might want to know.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  2. unhurt
    Member

    Surely you don't idle away your employer's time on the Internet during working hours @snowy? Shocked etc.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  3. chdot
    Admin

    Lunch break...

    Posted 6 years ago #
  4. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    What is a 'database'?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  5. Snowy
    Member

    And frequently, what is a 'lunch break'?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  6. Ed1
    Member

    I have had this message a few times I wondered if it may be if write a rubbish post, I just had that message appear after this post -)

    Posted 6 years ago #
  7. chrisfl
    Member

    Thanks :) Can't see anything obviously wrong, but I've turned the database off and on.

    Will monitor in the morning.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  8. fimm
    Member

    I think I've seen it too.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  9. acsimpson
    Member

    I've been getting the error on and off today too. I wonder if it's also the reason that feedly hasn't been keeping up.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  10. dessert rat
    Member

    I've been seeing it, but only since the Red Snow warning - coincidence ? I think not.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  11. unhurt
    Member

    Snow in the tubes?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  12. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I miss the Varnish Cache Server Days.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  13. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    I saw a Varnish error message yesterday.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  14. chrisfl
    Member

    I did make some changes during the week - it looked like we were getting hit by a robot and this was leading to the large number of errors at the beginning of last week. So the robot is now blocked and I've enabled caching for users not logged in.

    We are still getting problems according to the logs we had 410 errors out of 159156 requests yesterday (Saturday). So hopefully a fairly small rate.

    I'll continue to monitor next week...

    Posted 6 years ago #
  15. gembo
    Member

    @chrisfl 159156 requests in a week. Is that quite a lot?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  16. acsimpson
    Member

    Chrisfl, could the robot block have stopped Feedly reading the RSS feed? It not been retrieving messages since the snow arrived.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  17. chrisfl
    Member

    @acsimpson - found a problem, with the headers the Feedly was sending and my caching config. Should be working now...

    Posted 6 years ago #
  18. acsimpson
    Member

    Thanks. It did indeed come back on sometime today.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  19. fimm
    Member

    Earlier today (7th March) I got the following:
    Error 503 Backend fetch failed
    Backend fetch failed

    Guru Meditation:
    XID: 1245187

    Varnish cache server

    Posted 6 years ago #
  20. Snowy
    Member

    A few of the original DB connection errors again throughout today including just now at about 20:28

    Posted 6 years ago #
  21. chdot
    Admin

    Yep -

    “ERROR: Could not establish a database connection”

    Posted 6 years ago #
  22. fimm
    Member

    And another.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  23. chrisfl
    Member

    Thanks for the reports, still no idea what's causing the problem, but I do have a plan.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  24. chdot
    Admin

    Is that Plan B?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  25. Snowy
    Member

    I'm getting the following error a lot tonight. If it would help, I think I've got some varnish in the shed...

    Error 503 Backend fetch failed
    Backend fetch failed
    Guru Meditation:
    XID: 101504
    Varnish cache server

    Posted 6 years ago #
  26. Ed1
    Member

    who is the guru and why the meditation

    Posted 6 years ago #
  27. chrisfl
    Member

    So - I think the route cause is at the datacenter, Bytemark have posted the following https://status.bytemark.org/issues/246 - It sounds like an issue on the networking side. I'm hoping that this will solve this.

    @Ed1 - Varnish is a frontend server that takes the incoming requests and for images and stylessheets as well as pages we cache for a shprt period of time such as the rss feeds will usually get served directly from memory.

    Using Guru Meditation as the error message, goes back to the Amiga (one of the best 80/90's computers) Equivalent of the Windows Blue screen of death, quoting from wikipedia: The term "Guru Meditation Error" originated as an in-house joke in Amiga's early days. The company had a product called the Joyboard, a game controller much like a joystick but operated by one's feet, similar to the modern-day Wii Balance Board. Early in the development of the Amiga computer operating system, the company's developers became so frustrated with the system's frequent crashes that, as a relaxation technique, a game was developed where a person would sit cross-legged on the joyboard, resembling an Indian guru.[3] The player tried to remain extremely still; the winner of the game stayed still the longest. If the player moved too much, a "guru meditation" error occurred.[4] The final unlockable balance activity in Wii Fit represents a similar game.

    I've nearly finished setting up scripts that can setup and configure cce from scratch in a single script so if the problems continue I do have the option of switching hosting fairly quickly now if needed. In fact this works so well that I earlier posted this to my test deployment rather than the real server....

    Posted 6 years ago #
  28. dougal
    Member

    I remember the original guru meditations (well, you know, the Amiga yellow or red flashing boxes) and still get a little leap of joy whenever I see it referenced in more modern technology.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  29. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I've nearly finished setting up scripts that can setup and configure cce from scratch in a single script

    Can it do @gembo's first post every morning?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  30. fimm
    Member

    I love the "Guru Meditation Error" story.

    Posted 6 years ago #

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