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My database keeps nuking itself.

Started by Wallydraigle, June 26, 2011, 08:04:38 PM

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Wallydraigle

I don't know if this is a problem with SMF or my host.  This keeps happening and it's getting very irritating.  Basically every few days all the posts disappear from the board.  All the totals remain unchanged, just all the topics are gone, and even all the pages on the boards are still there, they're just all blank.  Here it is  http://www.tfnn.net/smf/index.php?board=1.0 [nofollow]

The last few times all the messages were still in the database, just the topics table was corrupted or something.  But I restored from a backup and everything was okay for a while.  This time almost all the messages are gone from the database as well.  But also as soon as I can restore from a backup this time, it almost immediately does it again.  I've tried a couple times to restore but it keeps doing it.

It's a very vanilla SMF install, so I don't know what's going on.  I'm about ready to chuck it.

**Oh yeah, every time this happens the board sends a blank email to me.  No subject, no message, just blank.

politirant

That sounds very strange, especially if you're not making any changes.

Who is it hosted with?

You can PM if you prefer not to post it publicly. I can certainly see how that would be frustrating.

Wallydraigle

For what it's worth I have a VPS with KnownHost.  I submitted a ticket with them but all they could tell me is that everything was working correctly when they checked.

Antechinus

Well, that is extremely unusual behaviour for a vanilla SMF installation. It's extremely unusual even for a heavily modified installation. Usually, persistent and repetitive corruption of database tables indicates either a server problem or hacking. Question: are there any core files being created in your web root? They'll be named "core" followed by four digits.

ETA: Another question. Has your host imposed any storage limits and are you hitting them? That will dump db content too.

Wallydraigle

There are no core files, and I've got about 2GB of space left.  I have an older SMF forum, which I've made read-only, on the same server and it's fine.  I did change my database password in case someone was accessing the database, but it did it again after that when I tried to restore from my backup.

Wallydraigle

So last night another admin did repair database through the goofy CPanel interface and then recount totals in the Admin Panel of SMF and it fixed it.  At least it made all the topics visible that were in my backup.  I did take a backup of the messed up board before I did anything, but it was about 25% of the size it should be, so not much hope there.  So we're just going to try to keep vigilant about taking frequent backups and hope it doesn't do it again.

MrMike

You either have some seriously intermittent hardware or a persistent hacker, and I'm guessing it's not the hardware. It sounds more like enemy action.

Antechinus

Use cPanel backups via cron job. Have theme automatic every day (I run mine at midnight). But yes, this does sound like either a hardware problem or a security breach on the server. Given the lack of core files and the apparent space available on disc, I'd be inclined to agree with MrMike.

Road Rash Jr.

Quote from: Antechinus on June 27, 2011, 06:10:32 PM
But yes, this does sound like either a hardware problem or a security breach on the server.

Or a security breach in SMF. I've made similar ignored reports and now others are noticing the same thing so it isn't a one time anomaly.
Never argue with an Idiot like myself, they just drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Antechinus

Possible, but without more information we can't know. Usually hacking problems on shared servers turn out to be hosting security problems.

MrMike

Quote from: Road Rash on June 27, 2011, 06:31:55 PMI've made similar ignored reports and now others are noticing the same thing so it isn't a one time anomaly.
I've not heard of this; would you please point me towards some (any) other posts that mention this issue?

busterone

There is a small contingent of people that think that there is security hole that draws spammers to 2.0 final.  Possible, but not due to SMF, but more due to spammers doing a search for 2.0 forums.  If there was a real security breach, there would be reports of sites being hacked, defaced, and/or deleted. There have been none that have been reported that I have seen. There is a huge difference between spammers attempting to overrun a forum with their links and an actual hack.

Kindred

I will note, to be clear:
RR's "report" has to do with spammers. It has nothing at all to do with security, files or databases. Therefore his statement is incorrect on many levels.

If there was some issue in SMF which allowed someone into your server to delete your database... or some flaw in SMF's coding which deleted the database, then I suspect that we would have seen additional reports of the issue.
As it stands, if the issue continues, I would ask that you allow one of our devs and/or server specialists to take a close look at your server setup and logs.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Wallydraigle

Okay, so it just happened again.  Same thing, the new board suddenly lost all its topics with all the empty pages remaining, and the old archive board being unaffected.  After it happened the database size was about a third of what it should have been.  Before doing anything I took a backup and then did the repair database thing in CPanel, and it fixed it with no apparent data loss.  After running repair the database was the size it should be again.

The repair thing said everything was okay except for these errors:

database.prefix_log_errors
error    : sort_buffer_size is to small
warning  : Number of rows changed from 0 to 1902

database.prefix_log_topics
error    : sort_buffer_size is to small
warning  : Number of rows changed from 0 to 13775

database.prefix_messages
error    : sort_buffer_size is to small
warning  : Number of rows changed from 0 to 12477


I just changed all my passwords just in case, but according to this maybe it's just some kind of buffer problem? 

Kindred

it actually sounds like some sort of corruption problem on the host side of things, especially if a repair database command fixes things.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Wallydraigle

I submitted a ticket with the new info I have to my host and I'll see what they say.  This is getting really annoying.

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