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Is it possible to create a backup consisting of a page listing all the most up-to-date ratings plus membership numbers/expiry dates for everybody? No search capacity, no bells at all, just a page with that and that only.
BTW, what happens after the final payment? Do the website creators have any obligation to fix problems down the road?
"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
The lead developer has referred to it as a memory leak within Drupal. Drupal is the framework that we've built the Content Management System around.
It seems that the quick fix when this happens is to reset the server.
I do want to say that we are dealing with a professional firm with a good reputation. They are not treating this as a joke and are working to get to the bottom of this. I'm sure they do want to receive their final payment from us.
And, Drupal is a free (as in Open Source) content management system, so any problems with it have to be debugged by the person having the problem - if they are capable of doing that debugging - or a workaround has to be developed. Problems such as those described by Fred can be very difficult to find and fix or even to work around (resetting the server is an easy fix, but it takes time for someone to find out the server is pooched and then connect in and reset it - all the while, everyone else wonders what is going on...)
And, Drupal is a free (as in Open Source) content management system, so any problems with it have to be debugged by the person having the problem - if they are capable of doing that debugging - or a workaround has to be developed. Problems such as those described by Fred can be very difficult to find and fix or even to work around (resetting the server is an easy fix, but it takes time for someone to find out the server is pooched and then connect in and reset it - all the while, everyone else wonders what is going on...)
How I long for the good old daze when a program could be written in spaghetti code with an loop in some obscure function.
And, Drupal is a free (as in Open Source) content management system, so any problems with it have to be debugged by the person having the problem - if they are capable of doing that debugging - or a workaround has to be developed.
This is not entirely so. Good open source projects are supported by communities of developers. I use an open source web content platform called DotNetNuke for the Scarborough Chess Club web site. A few weeks ago, I encountered an error with DotNetNuke and brought it up on one of the DotNetNuke technical forums. One of the core team members figured out what the problem likely was and he asked me to post a bug report. Within two or three weeks, a new version was released and the bug was fixed. Turns out that the error arose because my ISP imposed particular restrictions on web sites hosted by them. Although I didn't write any code or anything like that, I contributed to the project by gathering detailed information related to the problem.
I've used good commercial software and I've used bad commercial software. Similarly for open source software. Drupal is a well supported open source project. The role of the CFC's contractors will be to isolate the problem and then submit a report to the Drupal core team. It's rare that end users will actually find a solution themselves. Solutions have to be developed so that they don't impact negatively on the other parts of the software. This sort of insight usually is not found outside the primary developer team.
BTW -- I still stick with my guess from a week or so ago that "some process is opening connections to the database and then neglecting to close them once the work is done. After a while there are no resources left for the database to function." I'll stick my neck out even further and guess that there is an issue related to querying the ratings and/or membership databases.
Last edited by Steve Karpik; Thursday, 13th October, 2011, 10:24 AM.
This is not entirely so. Good open source projects are supported by communities of developers. I use an open source web content platform called DotNetNuke for the Scarborough Chess Club web site. A few weeks ago, I encountered an error with DotNetNuke and brought it up on one of the DotNetNuke technical forums. One of the core team members figured out what the problem likely was and he asked me to post a bug report. Within two or three weeks, a new version was released and the bug was fixed. Turns out that the error arose because my ISP imposed particular restrictions on web sites hosted by them. Although I didn't write any code or anything like that, I contributed to the project by gathering detailed information related to the problem.
I've used good commercial software and I've used bad commercial software. Similarly for open source software. Drupal is a well supported open source project. The role of the CFC's contractors will be to isolate the problem and then submit a report to the Drupal core team. It's rare that end users will actually find a solution themselves. Solutions have to be developed so that they don't impact negatively on the other parts of the software. This sort of insight usually is not found outside the primary developer team.
BTW -- I still stick with my guess from a week or so ago that "some process is opening connections to the database and then neglecting to close them once the work is done. After a while there are no resources left for the database to function." I'll stick my neck out even further and guess that there is an issue related to querying the ratings and/or membership databases.
Fair enough. I was indicating what might take place while the core developers look into a fix. Not all open source efforts have a sterling reputation for fixing problems in a timely fashion. As far as I know, none of them have any obligation to do so within any specific time frame (obviously, since the nature of open source implies no warranty expressed or implied...)
I would hope the web developers that the CFC used have already filed a bug report and are looking for a work around in the meantime.
PS: I like your guess concerning the nature of the problem, although it may turn out to be inside whatever database code they are using (MySQL?) - when you use multiple components to make a stew, you may find it hard to find out where the bad taste is coming from... :)
BTW -- I still stick with my guess from a week or so ago that "some process is opening connections to the database and then neglecting to close them once the work is done. After a while there are no resources left for the database to function." I'll stick my neck out even further and guess that there is an issue related to querying the ratings and/or membership databases.
OK, Steve: I've sent your quote to Resolution. Maybe you have the magic bullet.
The website is working again, but is there no ratings update this week?
Gerry had the ratings finished last night, but since the website was down, couldn't act on it. I would assume he'll get back to this later today or at worst tomorrow.
Is it possible to create a backup consisting of a page listing all the most up-to-date ratings plus membership numbers/expiry dates for everybody? No search capacity, no bells at all, just a page with that and that only.
BTW, what happens after the final payment? Do the website creators have any obligation to fix problems down the road?
We have a service agreement with the developers, regarding the software. I would assume that any gross errors on their part would be fixed. We have extra time now to find smaller bugs or glitches. Updates to Drupal we will be responsible for, and presumably would have to find somebody to do the work, perhaps a volunteer. We'll see.
Resolution agreed to host our web site free of charge for two years, so that aspect would be no charge to us.
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