home page not displaying on TLD

[snadge]

Hi

it was brought to my attention that our forum is displaying a blank white page on its top level domain of www.thetechforum.co.uk - but does work when you add /index.php too the end? - its always worked, is this a SMF problem or HOST problem? I think its a HOST issue (EZPZ)

if I or HOSTS use a re-direct then does this affect SEO..? does it affect google rankings if they detected the main url is being re-directed? will META tags still be logged etc?

thanks

[kat]

For what it's worth, everything looks A-OK, for me.

I'd suspect either a browser's cache, or the forum's.

One thing you could get your members to try, too, is to open a DOS window and enter:

ipconfig /flushdns

Note the space, before the "/".

[snadge]

it was happening wih all users... but immediately after my post i done the following

empty out cache
optimized database
ran daily maintenance
ran weekly maintenance

then it started working ... must have been a corrupt file in cache?

[kat]

Very likely.

Glad you're sorted.

[snadge]

Very likely.

Glad you're sorted.

yes... and thanks for the super quick reply

[kat]

Just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, matey.

[snadge]

...hey... (offtopic) ...you dont happened to know what those DAILY and WEEKLY Forum Maintenance options actually DO ...do you?


thnx

[kat]

The most obvious thing, is the one that optimises the database, which keeps things whizzing along, merrily, instead of getting all gunky (That's a techie term)

Most of those items do similar things, in subtly different ways. Removing errors, which might make unnecessary calls to the database, that kinda thing.

[Arantor]

I don't think it's actually documented anywhere.

Daily Maintenance
* empty out the file cache
* if warnings are set to decrement by any % per day, perform that on any members with current warnings
* take the spider hit logs if enabled and consolidate them for the daily totals in the spider section
* certain versions of MySQL require certain patches, check whether this is the case and reset it if not (since it's not a good idea to leave running longer than absolutely necessary)
* if OpenID is enabled, reset the values used to generate auth keys for security purposes

Weekly maintenance
* check if some values in the settings table are defined but empty, if so remove them (since not defined works the same as defined-but-empty, basically just keeps the table a little leaner if possible)
* perform any log pruning (mod log, ban log, report log, scheduled task log, spider log) if requested in the log settings page
* attempt to clean up paid subscriptions that were never actioned
* clean up session data for hosts that don't otherwise do it properly (does not mitigate the bug currently under discussion)

Neither should ever be disabled.

Neither performs an actual optimisation operation (which should never be carried out without proper knowledge of the situation anyway)

[snadge]

thanks for that


so these two options have to be done manually?

1) Optimize Tables
2) check errors

[Arantor]

1.

Neither performs an actual optimisation operation (which should never be carried out without proper knowledge of the situation anyway)

IOW don't just optimise it because you think it'll help. Depending on the table and situation it could actually make things worse.

2. Running that regularly would put a very large strain on the server. I think I run it every other year or so just to check stuff but very rarely does anything ever come up on it anyway.

[kat]

You can add Optimise Database to "Scheduled tasks". Just check the option, there, if it's not checked, already. I don't have that set, for the reasons Arantor mentioned. I just do it, when I feel like it, really.

Optimise Database is set to run once a week, whilst checking for errors isn't there. I wouldn't even bother doing that, ever, unless something weird was happening.

[Arantor]

There is no task for finding errors.

As for optimising the database, I'd point out the multiple reasons why not but I'm having the feeling of shouting up from inside a well, you know?

[snadge]

hmm

SMF by default optimizes database every 3 days?



surely it cent be an issue that may make it worse and put strain on the server? wouldn't they put a WARNING! there?

[snadge]

............also

OPTIMIZE ALL TABLES
This task allows you to optimize all tables. This will get rid of overhead, effectively making the tables smaller in size and your forum faster!

[kat]

If you click on "Optimise database", you can change how often it does it.

Whilst I wouldn't dream of contradicting Arantor, I have mine set to run every week and it's never had a bad effect. Maybe, if you run it often, when you do it, it doesn't create such a load? Maybe that's coz my forum's quite small, though?

I also have it set to run when the forum's quiet.

[Arantor]

Oh yes it can.

10 years ago when SMF first added the optimisation, it actually made sense. But MySQL has advanced greatly since then.

So about 6 years ago when SMF converted to having scheduled tasks, it was converted to one and still left on by default, because then it was still useful. That language string hasn't changed in that time, so yes, back then it probably did make it faster.

But MySQL has moved on massively since then and it's vastly better not to do it. Technology evolves in 10 years, what was good practice back then certainly isn't now - and there's a *lot* of that inside SMF.


For example, SMF doesn't tell you that while it's optimising the database, NO-ONE can visit it. Not even administrators. The entire site is locked while the optimisation is carried out.

Additionally, on InnoDB tables (which is the now-default table type in MySQL), running optimise is actually chronically bad for performance in a way it wasn't quite so bad for MyISAM tables, because InnoDB actually relies on having that overhead in it in the first place. Removing that overhead makes everything slower.

In any case, once a site gets big enough (100k posts+), it's physically too big to be optimising on a regular basis because not only does the downtime get prohibitively long, but everything is slowed down because indexes have to be rebuilt, data has to be re-warmed up again and various other things.

Also, please do not assume that 'because SMF does it, it must be safe'. There are a number of systems in SMF that are absolutely prone to screwing your site up if not managed properly.


K@, you have, what, 20k posts on your forum? Below 20k posts the effects are not pronounced, but the bigger you get, the exponentially larger the effects get. GS does not, for example, ever run maintenance on her forum (and I think Liroy would have heart failure if she did)

EDIT: I see you have nearer 50k posts. Optimise is going to soon get to the point where it will start slowing you down rather than benefitting you.

[kat]

That took some typing.

I'm grateful. Ta!

[snadge]

well im glad ive been told about that? - BUT you WOULD think SMF would change it via an update though? surely if this is correct then they MUST be aware of it?

when I do it , it seems to take 1 second? unless the OPTIMIZE TABLES option (seen below) is something else entirely?



we have 14,000 posts and average 2-4 users online with average of 24 posts and 3.4 topics per day

so should I turn it off in tasks?

[kat]

With that number of posts, I'd let it do it's thing once a week, or so, myself.

Maybe even every month.

[Arantor]

BUT you WOULD think SMF would change it via an update though? surely if this is correct then they MUST be aware of it?

There are two problems. Firstly, there is a drastic shortage of competent technical people around here. There are maybe half a dozen people total that frequent this site that have the skills to actually do such things properly, almost all of them are in the current dev team or have been in the dev team, and the last one has flatly refused offers of that on more than one occasion (me)

Secondly, officially, SMF prior to 2.1 is in maintenance only. Such a thing would not come in the scope of patches.

But if we're going down that road there are plenty of things SMF could do in the default installation that would be better in performance.

That's one of the things, it's not exactly a rule that applies in every case. For small forums (10k posts or so) it's fine and you won't notice the performance difference either way whether you do it or not. And since that's what most people who install SMF have to deal with, it's fine. Yeah, 1 second is about right for the size of database you have. Once you hit a few hundred MB or larger it starts to dig in, and once you reach the GB realms, all bets are off in every respect.

I'd suggest turning it off personally, there's no real benefit to you to keeping it on. In fact there is a variety of circumstances that mean that it may not even be actually firing anyway (that the task will activate but fail to actually optimise anything due to other conditions, meaning leaving it on is just overhead you don't need)

[kat]

Just to let you know that Arantor knows WAY more, about this stuff, than I EVER will.

[snadge]

oh i can tell... ive had help from Arrantor before and most certainly take his word on it

I have disabled it

what about this "optimize tables" option... is this the same thing? one in screen shot i posted before - should I never run that too?

thanks again

[Arantor]

The optimise all tables maintenance task is actually effectively the same as the automated scheduled task. I have no idea why SMF gave that extra prominence.

[snadge]

ok thanks

I wont ever run them again then, thanks for the heads up

any other tips? hehe

cheers

[Arantor]

A collection of interesting and surprisingly powerful tips

[snadge]

thanks for that - will have a gander tomorrow ...going to watch film now with the GF

thanks again for the assistance - both of you