UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 7 Development How Do I? Need some assistance please.

Ok, so I've spent almost a month tweaking out a board to look great with all my hacks and the latest version of UBB.Classic (6.3)...

Now, that I've finally gone LIVE and upgraded my 6.2x board to this version, a small problem that had been ocurring occaisionally on 6.2x is now happening A LOT on the new version.

Here's the error, I'm hoping someone else has seen it and has an idea as to what could be causing this.

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Sorry, UBB has encountered an unexpected, fatal error. This error is extremely abnormal. Please contact the board administration. The error text is:

Can't truncate 'NonCGIPath/cache-(cache_pw)/pntf/now.cgi'.

Permission was denied - please ask the administrator to check the permissions on that file/directory!

The exact error returned by the operating system is:
Permission denied
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I'm running a WIN2K server, UBB.Classic 6.3... board is located at http://forum.sofguild.com

REALLY hoping someone else has stumbled over this one before and has some suggestions.

If I refresh the screen when I get the error, it works just fine. Seems to be kind of random.

Thanks in advance for the help.

~Z

Try submitting configuration settings or CHMODing the cache-##### directory to 777.

Per Infopop instructions both my CGI-BIN and FORUM directories are fully accessible and writeable to IUSER.

This is WIN2K, not Linux. So it's a little different.

It WORKS when you refresh the screen remember. I really don't think it's a permissions problem, if it is, it's a wierd one.

Thanks for idea Greg, anyone else have an idea?

~Z

Ok, I have absolutely no idea what to do to figure this out. Anyone out there seen this before?

I've reset all permissions but users are still reporting the error.

I'd post in IP's site but of couse I have a number of hacks installed. Just looking for some type of direction, maybe something someone else has seen.

Thanks,

~Z

Just wondering... do you have any modifications installed that make use of the cache in some way?

You might want to try with a fresh install of UBB and re-hack your board, testing everything after each hack.

Just some random thoughts.

sounds like either a file ownership problem or permissions... try checking that the everyone acct has the same permissions as the iusr acct, at least on your cache directory...

NT/2k returns "permission denied" often when there is no real permission issue.

If it's happening infrequently, you're simply catching the system in the middle of one operation... while this is something that we've tried to prevent in the code, it does happen from time to time.

If things get chronic, you should consider switching to a less loaded server, or to something Unixy.

Hey guys thanks for the pointers...

@ Idle - I thought that too, of course it was happening INfrequently on my 6.2x board, and I'm using almost all of the same hacks on this board... sooo many of them to install. If it persists I may go that route.

@ AA - DOH, it's so simple it's, it's, BRILLIANT! I didn't think of the Everyone account, went and looked and Everyone didn't have change/modify rights, so I set Everyone the same as IUSER... So far, I haven't seen the error. I'll let my users test the limits and see. I'm wondering also if it's not happening more frequently with a higher load (i.e. more members browsing the board)...

@ CC - That's what I thought when I was getting it on my 6.2x board, that it was just, happening... was fairly infrequent at that time. As far as switching hosts... well... umm... I AM the host. It's my server, my software, hosted, well, right next to me. AND it's not too terribly busy really. Load is quite low.

As far as going to something "Unixy"... I've got a couple different versions of Linux floating around the house, but just don't have time to spend learning it right now, though someday I will grab all my spare parts and build another box and learn it.

Thanks guys, the Everyone permissions thing might have worked, let's hope so. I knew I could count on the members @ UBBDev for help!

~Z

Well, the problem persists. Thought that fixed it.

It's not AS frequent as it was, but still happening about once a session for all users.

I'm going to start uninstalling hacks and see what that does... Must be something there causing a problem.

If anyone else has any suggestions, I'm open.

~Z

Turning off Recent Visitors would probably solve the problem.

Is that what the now.cgi file is for CC?

I was wondering if one of the mods on my board is causing problems with that and the cache...

Going to see if turning of recent visitors will help, but that's a feature I really want, especially considering a bunch of my mods use it. hehe

Thanks for the advice CC!

~Z

Ok, recent visitors turned off for the weekend and no complaints from the users. Which I assume is good, since I'm sure they'd complain if they still got the error.

Going to start checking hacks this week as I am now seeing the error more frequently on my test board, which is 99% identical to the live board.

The only question is, what is now.cgi used for? Just to show recent visitors? Must be a mistake I made in WOL hack... only thing I can think of... Will have to dig out my list of hacks and see which ones affect recent visitors. hehe

I will report back if I have any luck. Thanks for the help, suggestions, and ideas everyone.

~Z

I thought they will complain because they want WOL

Yep, now.cgi is a Recent Visitors file, and no hack modifies it, so don't blame anything but Microsoft

I still don't think it's fully a WIN2K problem.

And Recent Visitors IS wanted... but perhaps Who's Online List isn't necessary or Extended Recent Visitors... That's what I was referring to.

If nothing writes to this file, then what is the purpose? Why would this one file give so many problems? I get no other errors...

I'm still leaning towards a hack problem...

*shrug* You'd think that if WIN2K is such a problem more folks would be complaining about this particular error.

I only use it because I know it... and no time to learn Linux right now.

~Z

I said no hack, only the default recent visitors does (ext pntf does make sure it writes in more places, but doesn't change anything critical)

Is there a possiblity that in my hacking fugue that I may have messed something up that calls this function?

Running with the everyone user at all is wrong. I run hundreds of 2K servers and that is the number one rule besides patching of course. LK, please don't use the "blame microsoft" thing for this problem. I have run this version on IIS without a single issue.

If you are being hosted then getting on a *nix server is your best bet. If this is your own server then make sure that the disk subsystem is fast enough and running NTFS.

Thanks for the support XPert...

I haven't had time to work on this further, but taking some vacation this next week and plan to bash the server/site into submission.

As I stated before I am hosting my own sites on my own server... 2x40 gig ATA100 drives running RAID right now. WIN2K SP2 running NTFS of course.

Traffic isn't huge by any means, the board has almost 250 members, of which 50 are somewhat to very active, the rest are lurkers and random posters.

Since it's our gaming Guild site, it wasn't meant to be a huge community, but we do get traffic from "allies" that we know in our games as well.

Well probably more info than you all need, but I don't think it's a traffic issue.

On the flip side, I was wondering if perhaps the version of ActiveState Perl I'm running has a problem as I've seen some odd events in the logs. AND I'm starting to notice "issues" with the server itself. (dang thing rebooted itself 2x in less than a week, after 41 days of up time!!! )

Looks like this weekend will begin with a full backup and perhaps a complete OS rebuild on the server to correct some of these potentially nasty server related issues. They may be causing the problem with the board without me realizing it.

Glad to have you all as sounding boards. If anyone sees anything in the above that might trigger a hint or tip, let me know. Otherwise I'm proceeding with server meltdown on Friday night.

I do appreciate all the help/hints/tips/suggestions!

~Z

Just a little update for everyone who tried to help with this problem...

Last weekend I reformatted my server... from scratch, even rebuilt the RAID array... hehe

Seems that some of the software problems I was having may have been related to a corruption of my NTFS file system... as shortly before I began the reformat I started seeing NTFS errors in my logs...

Long story short, after sweating over the reinstall for 3 days... everything relating to UBB works flawlessly... Though I don't recommend anyone reformatting a live web server that's a DC and hosting Exchange.

Alls well that ends well.

Thanks for the help and support folks.

~Z

It's not a hack problem, it's a timing problem. Or disc speed - I/O problem, however you want to term it.

UBB is trying to write to now.cgi before some other process is done using it and so the file is locked.

I'm not even sure something UNIXy will fix it although UNIX based O/S generally are a bit snappier about disc access and I/O. Perhaps a faster hard drive?

Is there anything else running on the server that does a bit of disc I/O that could be slowing things down? Is your page file too small? That will do it. Not enough RAM will cause swapping and I/O problems too.

hmm, one of the problems with the Quick Reply thing is that sometimes you miss the part where on page 2 someone says

"all fixed"

oops.

I really dislike this thing.

LOL no problems... After doing all the work on the server, rebuilding the OS, I really did see more problems outside of the UBB.

I expect they all added up and this was merely a side effect.

Turned out there was a problem with my RAID controller driver as well... hehe So, your answer could be valid, if the OS was trying to talk faster than the disks could work, hoooo boy!

~Z