web update sometimes hangs

[DaveNZ]

Hi Steve, I thought this may have been a one-off problem but it happened again this morning. At the bottom of Cumulus it just says "Connecting to website" permanently without proceeding any further. This happened about an hour before I noticed it, so the tags file and the graphs on the site are 1 hour old. realtime.txt is still getting uploaded every 10 seconds though.

I haven't had any form of logging turned on when the issue happens. I turned it on while the update was just sitting on connecting and there was no usedul information about what was going on.
I've turned FTP logging on now after a Cumulus restart...

[JJYakobitis]

The same problem happens to me at almost every day.

At the bottom of Cumulus it just says "Connecting to website" permanently without proceeding any further.

The FTP upload freezes or hangs when it is attempting to upload my web files to my host server. However, unlike DaveNZ's issue, this also causes my internet connection to freeze on the PC. Thus, no files can be uploaded. In fact, I cannot get any browsers to connect to the internet until I manually close Cumulus. Then, I can connect to the internet with any web browser. If I re-open Cumulus, it works fine again. I am using 1.9.1 Build 962, but this has been happening for some time. I am lucky if I can run Cumulus for more than 48 hours without having to manually restart it so I can upload my web files again. I enable rapid fire for WU and FTP every 5 minutes for my web site. Please help.

J.J.

[steve]

Please help.

The ftp log would be helpful.

The only way I can think of that a single program could cause you not to be able to use a browser would be if all of your available connections were used up, but I believe the limit in Windows is quite high. It's possible that if the connections weren't being disconnected properly, due to some problem with your ftp server, that the number in use would just keep going up, I suppose. Have you looked at netstat when the problem occurs, to see how many connections are in use?

[steve]

I enable rapid fire for WU and FTP every 5 minutes for my web site.

Something else to consider: is the ftp freezing part of the problem, or just a symptom, like your web browser? Perhaps http is actually the problem. This is something you will have to determine.

[JJYakobitis]

The ftp log would be helpful.

Attached is the ftp log.

Have you looked at netstat when the problem occurs, to see how many connections are in use?

I haven't but I will look at it when the problem occurs again.

is the ftp freezing part of the problem, or just a symptom, like your web browser? Perhaps http is actually the problem.

I don't understand what you mean here. I think the FTP freezing blocks all internet connections for the PC. I have a laptop PC solely dedicated to running Cumulus, so I don't use it for anything else but to upload data to WU and my web site.

Thanks,
J.J.

[steve]

Attached is the ftp log.

Thanks. Could you delete it now, please, it's got lots of old tracing in there. It's best to delete the file just before you turn on ftp logging otherwise it just keeps appending, and the old stuff is confusing.

You're getting transfer timeouts:

11:37:09:259 0324D0E0 TriggerDataSent 32276
11:37:39:232 ! Aborting
11:37:39:272 ! HighLevelAsync 0
11:37:39:272 ! Abort detected

The server hasn't responded for 30 seconds, so the transfer gets aborted. I can only assume that you are getting lots of these, and somehow the connections are getting left open, and eventually you reach the system limit and are unable to make any more connections.

I don't understand what you mean here. I think the FTP freezing blocks all internet connections for the PC. I have a laptop PC solely dedicated to running Cumulus, so I don't use it for anything else but to upload data to WU and my web site.

I don't believe that the FTP 'freezing' in Cumulus could cause you not to be able to use the internet. That would suggest quite a serious bug in Windows. I believe that the FTP freezes for the same reason that you are unable to use the internet, i.e. the freezing is a symptom, not a cause. The cause would appear to be the transfer timeouts, which somehow eventually cause you to run out of some resource or other. But I don't claim to be an expert in this area.

I'll look to see if there is something Cumulus should be doing when the transfer gets aborted. But you should also investigate why you are getting so many timeouts. I had lots of timeouts recently when my ISP was having problems which caused severe packet loss.

[JJYakobitis]

I can only assume that you are getting lots of these, and somehow the connections are getting left open, and eventually you reach the system limit and are unable to make any more connections.

I constantly get connection timeouts. I happens just about every time Cumulus attempts to upload my web files via FTP and the worst time seems to be between 6-9 AM. It is very annoying. I upload 9 pages every 5 minutes and usually several of the pages do not get uploaded because the connection times out.

I had lots of timeouts recently when my ISP was having problems which caused severe packet loss.

I am using a wired Ethernet connection and the rest of my devices don't have any internet connection issues so I assume that this might be a host server issue. Do you recommend using a different host server?

I'll look to see if there is something Cumulus should be doing when the transfer gets aborted.

As long as I know that the FTP tool in Cumulus isn't the issue then I can rule that out. Let me know what you find.

Thanks again,
J.J.

[steve]

I assume that this might be a host server issue. Do you recommend using a different host server?

In my case it was definitely my internet connection, but from what you say it does seem to be the server in your case.

[steve]

It seems there's nothing additional that Cumulus should be doing once a transfer is aborted. However, it doesn't really make sense for it to just ignore it and carry on trying to upload the rest of the files, it should really give up and see if the problem has gone away on the next update. So I'll make the necessary changes for the next build. Whether this will help your situation or not, remains to be seen. And whether this is anything do with the problem that Dave (whose thread has been well and truly hijacked) is seeing, is anyone's guess.

[JJYakobitis]

Thanks for the update Steve and sorry to DaveNZ for hi-jacking your post. I assumed you would have responded since I thought we were having the same problem. Concerning the upload internet connection timeouts, I have changed host servers, so hopefully that will remedy the problem.

Thanks,
J.J.

[DaveNZ]

Thanks for the update Steve and sorry to DaveNZ for hi-jacking your post. I assumed you would have responded since I thought we were having the same problem. Concerning the upload internet connection timeouts, I have changed host servers, so hopefully that will remedy the problem.

Thanks,
J.J.

It's OK, I haven't really got anything to provide clues about what my issue was. It hasn't happened since I first posted.

[JJYakobitis]

UPDATE:
I haven't had any further issues since I changed host servers for my site on 11/14/10.

I'll look to see if there is something Cumulus should be doing when the transfer gets aborted. But you should also investigate why you are getting so many timeouts. I had lots of timeouts recently when my ISP was having problems which caused severe packet loss.

So as Steve suggested, this was my issue and not a Cumulus issue.

Thanks,
J.J.

[DaveNZ]

I haven't had a a repeat either, though I haven't changed anything!

[steve]

I haven't had a a repeat either, though I haven't changed anything!

Twiglet Zone.

I suspect you were having connectivity issues and now you're not.

[hills]

For the record I had the same issue after upgrading to 189, reported in this thread: https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2802
but it hasn't happened to me for quite a while either (touch wood!)