"index.php?action=pm" My Messages area does not load suddenly?

[MasterMagic]

I have had a simple machines forum for over three years now that does get a decent amount of use.

Quite suddenly today the PM "my messages" area does not load at all.

index.php?action=pm

Anyone have any ideas?

[Illori]

in what way does it not load? anything in the error log?

[SlammedDime]

Is it only not loading for you?  Other members?  Only certain members?  Errors in your forum and hosting error log?

[MasterMagic]

Ah - so true!  Guess this is why you are the experts! 

Turns out it does not seem to be affecting the 'normal' member base - just moderators and admins? But still cannot figure out why...

Nothing at all showing up for errors in the error log or on my server log either.

[Illori]

do your admin and moderators have a lot of pm's?

[MasterMagic]

No here is something else odd...  Suddenly today I could access them.  I had 5 pages which I deleted thinking having too many may have been part of the problem, etc.
However whenever I tried clicking on the 5th page it wouldn't load - but all other pages did load.  It only worked too after I was sent two PMs this morning that brought me up over the 5th page.

Deleted all my PMs and it doesn't work again.

We don't have that many moderators actually - I checked with them and they only had like 9 and the other had 20 or so - nothing that seems it would break anything?  I have had hundreds in the past without problems (since been deleted though).

And actually just checked - I can now access the area again as someone sent me a PM that brought me up over to a second page of PMs - but if I try and click on page one it won't load - but page 2 and 3 will?

So random and odd behavior.

[MasterMagic]

PS: I wouldn't mind paying someone to help me fix this.  We use the forums a lot and it is crucial everything is working properly.

[MasterMagic]

So...  I ended up solving the problem by going through and purging all the PMs from all admins and moderators and things started working again.

I guess one of the moderators sent a really 'big' PM to another moderator - a whole chat log - and it must have freaked out the system?

Thanks for the help guys.

[SlammedDime]

Large PM's can cause the BBCode parser to balk and fail... not sure why, but it happens.