MySql down?

I noticed for the past 15 minutes, I've been receiving this error for my forum. Wonder if others are having issues also. Haven't seen any notices referring to downtime.

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Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /home/.garfy/m4n1f35t4t10n/a5y1um.zrdwd.com/db/mysql4.php on line 48

Warning: mysql_error(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/.garfy/m4n1f35t4t10n/a5y1um.zrdwd.com/db/mysql4.php on line 330

Warning: mysql_errno(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/.garfy/m4n1f35t4t10n/a5y1um.zrdwd.com/db/mysql4.php on line 331
phpBB : Critical Error

Could not connect to the database
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Thanks in advance.

Yes, I've been having the same downtime for at least a couple of hours now on my Wordpress blog, and the status on my feed from Feedburner shows that it was also down for some time early this morning.

This is the third time in a month I've had extended MySQL downtime rendering my site unusable. The second time it happened, I said that if it happened a third time I'd move my site to another host.

I guess it's time to go looking.

I'm having no MySQL problems.

No MySQL troubles. However, I did have problems logging in via ssh and ftp this morning.

yes, same here - glad it's not just me, thought my dB was corrupted and required restore.

Error:
Lost connection to MySQL server during query.


have submitted a support request however don't expect anything until usually a day later when the problem has already been resolved.

phoned them and only able to leave message.
have been having this Sql connectivity problem for a good 4 hours now without resolvement.

as others, it's leaving my site ... useless and loosing traffic/money.

sweet Dreams, Mr. Host ... perhaps you might get to it when your good and ready.

unexceptable !

It's been 6 hours after first noticing, and it's still down.
For the ones that posted that aren't having issues, it must be only on our server (those that are having issues). And yes... I've noticed this since the beginning of November (up/down periods), but don't receive a notice until a day AFTER it has been fixed.

Glad to know it's not only me.

my website (westkyimports.com) database has been down too. Noticed it went down Sat night around 5:30pm CST and is still dowm 7:10am CST Sun. So im going on 14 hours without having any access to my site since it all relys on the database.. I have put in support request too a couple of times. looks like they dont have any support on the weekends.. i dont know.

Ok. It's 8:30AM and I haven't slept. Here's the response I got from reporting the outage:

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There has been an update on the service interruption
you have asked to be notified about:

Outage resolved: No server-wide problem was found.
(2005-12-11 00:49:32 PDT, 0 secs ago)
Outage first reported.
(2005-12-11 00:28:43 PDT, 20 mins 49 secs ago)


You reported that this downtime was affecting:

mysql service for xxxxx


Since we weren't able to verify there was a server-wide problem,
you may still be experiencing an outage. Please double-check that
you are, and if so, please submit a regular support request so we can look into your specific issue.

We're very sorry for any inconveniences,
The UnHappy DreamHost Notification Team
***********

I filled out the form just now, detailing everything, script lines it was referring to, not being able to log into myphpadmin (wrong username/pw)... the whole shabang. Something's missed up if it won't accept my credentials. And I haven't done any maintenance of any sort all day.

I was very pissed off last night while going to bed, knowing my site was rendered useless, I thought about recoding a temp page without the Sql connection requests.

but decided to forget about that idea as my site would then not be able to trade traffic anyhow.

I get up this morning, a note from Support: fixed and sorry for the down time, we have credited your account for a months worth of service.

great thank you !
now, I had on average 13-15K traffic per 24/hrs,
I'm now down to 6K

thanks a lot !

I'm supposed to renew for the upcoming year this month,
althought with the free month, it won't be untill January month.

here's the catch, I will *not* be re-newing if I don't get
a phone/page number to some person oncall 24hrs for DreamHost emergency issues.

there is no way I can risk that 16 hours can pass while no
response from support with an Sql issue like this.

at best I was able to phone them in order to only find
that I can only leave a message, which they might get to
the next morning.

I need some sort of # to a live person 24hrs/day.

when the clients are able to realize there is a problem
but Tech Support is not aware or able to act on it until
the following morning ... well that is just simply NOT exceptable!

not normal either ...

I'm rather upset about this issue and it comes
after a whole year of hosting without issues, a few days before renawal time.

not good, I need a host that is there for me 24hrs/day
on pager emergency standby.

as a matter of a fact, they should have something called
'BigBrother' hooked up, that contacts then via alerts to
whatever means of communication to notify them
that their clients have lost Sql connectivity.

we run something like this were I work at ... as soon
as any services drops that we have configed to be monitoring,
we are notified both by email and blackberry,
usually we have corrected the issues before the phones
start ringing up at the helpdesk centre.

go figure, we even know when the CPU is too high on our boxes, threadholds are set for CPU/disk

Our BigBrother can't connect to Sql servers, we know about it first.
not the clients and then many hours later we might get to it.

this is STUPID !!!
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In reply to:

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there is no way I can risk that 16 hours can pass while no response from support with an Sql issue like this.

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If you are running a website that is so sensitive to downtime, and costs you huge amounts of money if there is some kind of outage, why are you using shared hosting? Any kind of professional site, that is not just informational, should really be hosted on a dedicated server.

Just to follow up, if you go Dedicated you will get a phone number (and pager?) to call for support. As I understand they're not taking on new dedicated customers right now, but will with the new year.



-Matttail

Just woke up and received an email saying the problem within mysql has been fixed. My forum, is in fact, up and running. No credit, but still up and running.

Yes, it bugs me that when my site is down because that's a precious moment for new visitors to think, "eh... this site doesn't exist", reguardless of the error, or, "obviously, this place is buggy" and believe it is not worth joining.

I'm not gonna fret, though. The non-24 hour live support (phone) is part of the great deal that I am getting to GET my portfolio up. If I wanted the phone support, then I would have foreward into looking at an expensive service. Things aren't perfect, and at the same time, it comes back to bite you on the ass. This is the reason why I did not make my forum part of the my original address (www.site.com/forum.... instead... sub.site.com), due to the fact of possible issues. If no one is capable of viewing my gallery and/or future product store, I'm screwed out of money.

But, no... I'm not looking elsewhere. I'm sticking with DH. I CANNOT beat the value of the dollar they have set. They haven't screwed me, never been rude to me, and eventually fix the issue at hand. The only upsetting thing is the non-phone call support. But, I need to save the money unless I'm hosting my own SSL merchant store, and not a link to a cart elsewhere.

Thanks for all your replies and concerns.

scjessey !

many thousand thank you's for your almighty advice.

no picture this ... you have a moped and it gets you from a. to b. without much breakdown and associated costs to you.

suddenly it breaks down one day and the people you got it from are no where to be found when you need their assistance, do you run out and go and buy a car cause you figure a car was meant for getting you a. to b. ?

and this car comes with more support from the same people you got the moped from ?

did you have problems with you Sql connectivity on the evening of December 10th, which lasted well into the next morning, some 14+ hours laters ?

did you loose 10K traffic to your site ?
in a matter of an evening, overnight and a morning ?

did you have a problem getting support immediatly when you needed it ?

are you about to renew payment for the upcoming year,
in 7 days from now for the total price of 239,- ?

why am I using shared hosting ?
because it's like that moped of your which works for me!

thanks for your suggestions and comment,
however if you are not HD support and are not in a possition
to add some kind of sql query failure monitoring tool, why are you providing me with feed back ?

are you able to get HD's clientele the immediate support they need at the time of issues ?

let me hear from you when you can do something for other then suggest I should be doing something better myself.

the fact is, most likely it wasn't affecting your site and thus
you surely weren't even aware of how it was affecting HD's clientele at the time of the issue ... but here you are with your proposed ideas.

thank you, I shall take it under advisement.

shared hosting or dedicated hosting,
24hr support ... you really figure that same support that was no where to be found until the next morning would act on dedicated services before hosted ?

sitting on a dedicated server is going to make HD support give you faster response then on hosted services.

get a grip !
they are either in the building watching their monitoring tools or not.

in this cause, there was appearently 24 hours of support,
several requests from several parties submitted for support,
several phone calls to HD which at best go to vm which will be checked in the mornings.

how dedicated !

please, no need for reply, your idea is splendid,
however, regardless of required service, the support needs to be there.

... they key would be that they are reachable in case of emergency during the 24hr periods.

A question, what is this phone support your keep refering too? I know for a fact there is no number you can call for support as a shared hosting customer here at DH (dreamhost). Enless you're refering to the call back feature.. just wondering.

And as far as support for a dedicated server goes, that's part of the price you pay for when you go dedicated - you're paying for more support among other things. Also, your systems are less likely to go down if you're the only one using them - enless there's a major netowrk outage.



-Matttail

In reply to:

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thanks for your suggestions and comment,
however if you are not HD support and are not in a possition to add some kind of sql query failure monitoring tool, why are you providing me with feedback?

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Maybe because this is a customer discussion forum, deployed so that customers can answer questions from other customers. This is not the place to get the attention of the DreamHost support team.

In reply to:

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let me hear from you when you can do something for other then suggest I should be doing something better myself.

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The fact still remains that shared hosting is not suitable for any mission-critical system. With shared hosting, you always have to put up with long support queues. With dedicated hosting, you get all the system monitoring software you need, and a phone number to support.

If you expect to get car-like performance from a moped, sooner or later you going to find that the poor overworked moped is going to break. Is that the fault of the moped manufacturer, or the guy who flogged the poor little thing to death?

The fact still remains .... that the Sql began having problems in the late afternoon of December 10th.

regardless of usage by shared or dedicated, support tickets
and a phone call were submitted.

the service was restored, or we should clearly say, looked at,
the following morning, December 11th around 9:15am.

this is normal for you ?

your saying that shared is not near as important as dedicated ?

would it not be much better to have some sort of alert system
to notify HD support that something major has gone down on the hosting side ?

or are hosted clients not important ?

this has nothing to do with what type of service level,
this is all related that clients were aware that the Sql was
having problems, and that on a Saturday evening, there was little support, actually none until the following morning.

if there in fact is 24hr support, then who looks at the support ticket systems during the evenings & overnights ?

If your a Tech and you are supposed to be monitoring the services, do you neglect the requests for support until
the morning guy shows up ?

or is that they say it's 24hr support ... but not really.

the truth of the matter is, I'm not here to sit and argue with you that I should be on dedicated services, it is more important for me
to have HD Support install something that monitors MySql query requests
... and if such should fail, pages out to a Tech who will
then look into the problem immediately.

*not* a lousy support ticket system, which may get looked
at after many hours have past where it's clients have been
screaming for some support on any specific issue.

now your solution, is a great one ! (I would have never have thought of it myself)
however, do not try and suggest that because I'm on hosted services I should not attempt to expect some sort of support when services stop working.

In reply to:

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The fact still remains .... that the Sql began having problems in the late afternoon of December 10th.

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As I indicated in an earlier post, I did not experience any problems with MySQL. It may be that the outage was limited to a handful of users.

In reply to:

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this is normal for you ?

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Since shared hosting costs me so little, I am not surprised when outages occur for extended periods of time, or support requests remain unanswered for 24 hours or more. This expectation is based upon years of experience with shared hosting.

In reply to:

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your saying that shared is not near as important as dedicated ?

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No. I never said that. If I pay more money to have my website hosted on a dedicated server, I expect a more sophisticated support framework with a faster response.

In reply to:

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if there in fact is 24hr support, then who looks at the support ticket systems during the evenings & overnights ?

If your a Tech and you are supposed to be monitoring the services, do you neglect the requests for support until
the morning guy shows up ?

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There may be hundreds of support requests at any one time. It may take many hours to get to yours, especially if there are other issues that may affect more customers happening at the same time. This is part of the risk involved with hosting your site in a shared environment - you have to wait your turn sometimes, because resources must be shared across the whole system.

Look, I'm not saying that you are being unreasonable about this. I just think you may be expecting a level or service over and above what would normally be expected in this environment. If your website is as crucially-important as you say it is, you would be far better served on a dedicated server. It is a business decision that you must make.

re: expecting a level of service over and above.

In reply to:

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your indicating that people should be forking over more $$$'s in order to receive a higher level of support service.

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Nope. I'm saying that you get what you pay for. DreamHost charges peanuts for shared hosting, considering what they offer. If you pay peanuts*...
The sort of level of service you are after simply cannot be guaranteed at this price level, which is why I recommended that you cough-up for a dedicated server.

* I'm not necessarily saying that the DreamHost support team are monkeys, but some of them have been known to have a banana or two.

Note that we do have an internal service monitoring system for monitoring all aspects of all of our machines and services and it sends pages to our techs and those pages are being monitored every day of the year including Christmas and Thanksgiving and even at 11:59pm on New Year's Eve. We use 'Nagios' and it's similar to Big Brother.

Not every single type of outage can be checked for. If, for instance, an outage only affects your website it would most likely not notify us. If it affected an entire server and many customers we would, of course, know.

Also, reporting an outage using our new service outage check will notify our techs once it has been verified either by corroboration via our internal service monitoring system or by another customer also reporting the same problem. In this case it sounds like that did not happen.

As for the choice of having a dedicated server or not, that's something each website owner has to decide for themselves. We offer both levels of service and our dedicated servers do come with a dedicated support telephone line as well as an emergency email address that's hard-wired to our techs' brains.

- Dallas
- DreamHost Head Honcho/Founder

acc: wws
db: wws_dsp

Error:
Lost connection to MySQL server during query



and so here we sit December 18th with the same problem.
now 12:48am, has not been functioning since 7:47am.


keep in mind, each time this happens, I loose the traffic I had,
have to spend time rebuilding it, to only have it being ruined again.

at this time, I'm trying to make HD Support aware of the problem.
not sure if 30 support tickets would do it.

It's dificult dealing with a Host that doesn't allow you to speak directly with them.

the only method is via a web interface ... kind of sad actually.

I really don't think that spamming their support will help your matter at all. Did you use the new 'is my server down' feature? That will notify supprt, let you know if they're working on it allready or not, and E-mail you with regular up-dates untill it's resolved.



-Matttail

actually for your information,
it did help !
has been down for many of hours and it wasn't until
I forwarded plenty of tickets that it received some attention
and now corrected.

thanks for your input though!

To all the people who are having MYSQL problems,

Maybe you could let us all know what MYSQL server you are on (the name)? It will do some good by informing the others who read this forum :)

This was more than a week ago and solved.
My initial post included the error message, and I'm assuming the server is ".garfy", that's why I didn't alter the address for help, hoping someone would recognize that. Thanks for pointing this out, though.

I had another database/email/site shutdown this weekend (same error message), but it sorted out more quickly. Found out it was from someone on the server who posted up a flood script. Bizarre how it only affects my database site and email, but not my standard HTML/Flash portfolio. :)

>Bizarre how it only affects my database site and email, but not my standard HTML/Flash portfolio. :)

All of thoes services are handeled through different machines. So it is likely that you only shared database and E-mail with the flood script, and your http stuff is elsewhere.



-Matttail