IE vs. Firefox on Cutcaster? Is codeignitor causing this and how can i fix it?

[eluser]johngrif[/eluser]
This is a message i got from a friend who took a look at our site after I told him about the site getting hung up when it tried to process two things at once. Thank you for any help or guidance in solving this.

I think I've found the symptom of the problem that should help with the solution.

In MSIE, if you make multiple requests on the browse page, the last request gets processed and you go to the correct photo.

On FireFox (and Chrome) if you make multiple photo requests (click one, two, three) then the site seems to get into a "hung" state.

I think that MSIE is actually killing previous requests whereas Firefox and Chrome keep the requests running.

For some reason your application gets in a hung state and only restarting the browser or waiting for the page to turn into a 404 error page seems to clear the issue.

------------------

I guess from the tests done above there is a problem with the request processing / action controller in the application. My guess would be that there's either a limit to the number of HTTP requests to the controller, that the requests are piling up (and locking the DB) or some other issue, but it is definitely being caused by parallel requests.

Have your guys try the test above in MSIE and in Firefox....check your MySQL slow-logs too in case the issue is parallel queries or locking on the tables.

Also, perhaps there's some PHP settings (php.ini) that could make a difference.


memory_limit -- maybe
max_execution_time = 30 (requests die after 30 seconds)


Perhaps there's a setting in CodeIgniter that would help too I am not sure but all evidence points to HTTP requests that are long-lived.

Can anyone help?

[eluser]Joshua Logsdon[/eluser]
Hi johngrif, wow, good luck!

First thing I would do is check that you are NOT using persistent database connections:
/application/config/database.php, $db['default']['pconnect'] = FALSE;

Second thing is if you are using AJAX, you could check how many calls are being sent out... maybe one click is sending multiple requests for some browser issue reason.

The next thing I would do is enable logging in Codeigniter OR check your server logs to see what may be going on behind the scenes.

You've got so many possibilities and things to try... could be some issue with sessions in one browser vs. no session in another, etc. I would start breaking it down to these controllable things first.

[eluser]johngrif[/eluser]
Thanks Joshua,

I am in the process of testing those out and then hopefully finding the issue or ruling them out.

Has anyone else heard of an issue like this before that might be related to CI? Anymore ideas or feedback on what the issue might be or what i might check for would be really appreciated. Even just short responses. Thank you so much.

[eluser]johngrif[/eluser]
Here is some more info from a conversation I just had with a developer and our system administrator. I'm willing to pay the person who can help me diagnose and fix this? Thank you for the help.


Jason the Developer : how did the site hold up today, anything breaking?

ME: there were some 404s....Joe "The System Admin" and i tried to locate them..ill send you our conversation

Jason the Developer: ok

ME: you get 404s right?

Joe "The System Admin": well, that tells me a TON about the 404 problem or when the site seems "hung up" and where to go look....they simply state "it doesnt work"....i looked in the logs, no errors......is it happening today, the 404s?

ME: yes...got 1

Joe "The System Admin": hmmm....and these are static pages too huh...sorta static...do the pages hangup

ME: it was the upload page

Joe "The System Admin": hmmm

ME: i was processing an ftp upload and it gave me a 404 bf it was done processing the ftp.

Joe "The System Admin": you know...the header and the footer of your site...the actual framework, that could be the problem...not the actual page you're on, but the banners

ME: why is that/ very interesting

Joe "The System Admin": like the bottom banner and the top portion beacuse the page we were having a proble with yesterday... was not dynamic at all..just a simple page
i wonder if there is a database call every time you display any page on the site...i would LOVE to know, what composes that page...once we know, we can probably find your 404 problem and the stalling problem

[eluser]Joshua Logsdon[/eluser]
Hi John,

If someone can diagnose from this without getting your code or being in your environment, my hat's off to them

It sounds like breaking things down into simple, controllable pieces isn't in your hands; it's in Jason's. If you have a non-production site up he could remove the headers and footers to see what happens.

I know your first message focused on browser issues, but it seems like you are getting 404s in other areas now too so it may not completely be a browser issue.

I think the first problem is consistency. If you don't always get a 404, then try to find a situation where you do. Then Jason can work backwards from it, either taking pieces of code out or putting in var_dump()s and exit()s so he can see where code is progressing until he finds where and if it breaks.

If it is never consistent, the only other way I can think to test is to enable the CI logging in the config. That's probably another Jason thing. Then when you get a 404, stop and check the system/logs to see if CI stopped for some reason.

The problem could be a mis-configured .htaccess file. Maybe some rule is causing recursion or misdirection.
You would have hopefully seen something in the web server access and error logs though. Is Joe checking both?

From here I would start looking to Joe to make sure the web server, PHP, and anything else is configured properly.