eAccelerator bugs

[sdogi]

So I have been searching for answers like past 2 months but haven't really been looking hard. Now last days I have been paying close attention to UniServer and have found an answer.

 

I'm running UniServer 7.1.2-Orion

My operating system is Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3

 

Before that I was running UniServer 7.0.1 and I had the same issues

 

If you are like me then you probably have stability issues with Apache crashing when UniServer has been installed as a service. At first I suspected antivirus or firewall but I disabled everything but Apache still crashed sometimes randomly.

 

It happens more often when you are booting into Windows XP. Usually it crashes within 1-3 minutes after Windows XP has loaded and error_log looks like this:

 

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:04 2011] [warn] pid file F:/data/usr/UniServer/usr/local/apache2/logs/httpd.pid overwritten -- Unclean shutdown of previous Apache run?

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:05 2011] [notice] Apache/2.2.19 (Win32) PHP/5.3.6 DAV/2 configured -- resuming normal operations

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:05 2011] [notice] Server built: May 20 2011 21:39:40

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:05 2011] [notice] Parent: Created child process 2556

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:06 2011] [notice] Child 2556: Child process is running

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:06 2011] [notice] Child 2556: Acquired the start mutex.

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:06 2011] [notice] Child 2556: Starting 250 worker threads.

[Tue Jul 26 09:41:06 2011] [notice] Child 2556: Starting thread to listen on port 80.

[Tue Jul 26 09:42:30 2011

] [notice] EACCELERATOR(2556): PHP crashed on opline 281 of prepare() at F:\data\www\index.php:268

 

[Tue Jul 26 09:42:[Tue Jul 26 09:42:35 2011] [crit] Parent: child process exited with status 3 -- Aborting.

 

If you uninstall service & reinstall services then Apache stays up for quite some time but depending on server load probably(because it is totally random) it will crash. I have to note that my servers load isn't that big at all but it is somewhat bandwidth heavy I guess(constant 30-60 kB/s).

 

Besides the system start up issue you might notice these in your error_log:

zend_mm_heap corrupted

 

And perhaps even this:

] [notice] EACCELERATOR(2652): PHP crashed on opline 15 of prepare() at F:\data\www\index.php:38

 

[Tue Jul 26 06:41:56 2011

] [notice] EACCELERATOR(2652[Tue Jul 26 06:41:56 2011] [crit] Parent: child process exited with status 3 -- Aborting.

 

There were even more EACCELERATOR errors I noticed in the logs but I don't have these old logs anymore because these were with UniServer 7.0.1 but I got rid of it. I figure the new one might have the same other EACCELERATOR errors too.

 

Anyway when it comes to Apache config then I have only changed the default values for keepalive and similar thing from php.ini for longer execution time. Apache values look like this:

 

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

KeepAliveTimeout 30

 

php.ini values:

output_buffering = 8192

max_execution_time = 7500

extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll

 

I myself suspect the cause for crashes is php_pdo_mysql.dll + eAccelerator but I can't test this since my software required php_pdo_mysql.dll. However I was able to fix the problem very easily today and it is sort of obvious how I did it. You just need to disable eAccelerator from php.ini like this:

 

;[eaccelerator]

;extension=eaccelerator.dll

;eaccelerator.allowed_admin_path=F:/data/usr/UniServer/home/admin/www/plugins/eaccelerator/control.php

;eaccelerator.cache_dir=F:/data/usr/UniServer/tmp/eaccelerator

;eaccelerator.debug = 0

 

Hopefully this will help people who are having issues like me and they don't know what to do. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere yet.

 

Also I have a small request. I have fairly extensive *nix background but I'm still a bit lazy when it comes to setting up Apache, PHP and MySQL on Windows. Mainly because I can't even imagine right now what a hassle it could be.

 

Anyway I was under the impression that Uniform Server is more geared towards people who want something that is stable and secure when it comes to WAMP packages. eAccelerator however doesn't really seem something that should be enabled by default since it is an optimizer. Could it be possible to perhaps disable it and put some tickbox or something to enable it from control panel with a warning that it can cause stability issues?

 

This would surely benefit your WAMP packages image since other than this very annoying issue I'm very satisfied with UniServer(having used XAMPP before which was just awful when it comes to default configuration).

 

Another alternative of course is to make sure that eAccelerator doesn't cause stability issues by extensive testing. But imho it would be easier to just turn it off by default and if somebody wants optimizer he knows where to look anyway.

 

Also if you look eAccelerator tickets:

http://eaccelerator.net/report/1?sort=type...sc=1&page=1

 

Then you can clearly see that it is not a stable piece of software. If you search the internet a bit you'll find even more eAccelerator crashes that aren't even in the ticket system.

 

Even though you aren't as popular as XAMPP with your WAMP package I really like what you guys are doing! But to avoid people getting confused or frustrated because of weird crashes I hope you do the right thing and remove eAccelerator from default configuration.

 

Thanks for great software!

[Heinz Stapff]

sdogi

 

Thanks for the info regarding

 

I'm running UniServer 7.1.2-Orion

My operating system is Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3

 

Just to be clear

1. Your running Uniserver on hard drive C or thumb drive D as a Service?
   
2. What is the file folder, C: InetPub or other?
   
3. I have the same system and run on D:/UniServer as a program just fine?
   
4. Without IIS or Both IIS and Apache?
   
5. Would like local folder if I could copy to thumb/USB drive?
   
6. The true strength of UniServer is portability?
   
7. Adding this to MyFavs. Will that book mark this topic, say UniServer XP?
   

Best regards for the input

[sdogi]

sdogi

 

Thanks for the info regarding

 

 

 

Just to be clear

1. Your running Uniserver on hard drive C or thumb drive D as a Service?
   
2. What is the file folder, C: InetPub or other?
   
3. I have the same system and run on D:/UniServer as a program just fine?
   
4. Without IIS or Both IIS and Apache?
   
5. Would like local folder if I could copy to thumb/USB drive?
   
6. The true strength of UniServer is portability?
   
7. Adding this to MyFavs. Will that book mark this topic, say UniServer XP?
   

Best regards for the input

 

* I'm running it on hard drive F

* UniServer is in F:\data\usr\UniServer, www is in F:\data\www

* It can runs fine on mine too most of the time but sometimes load causes stability issues. This might also be conflict between Comodo Internet Security Premium and Apache.. either way disabling eAccelerator fixes it

* Without IIS

* Don't understand the question

* I don't care about portability. I mean sure it is nice but in my eyes Uniform Server is secure version of portable WAMP packages. Security is most important, then comes portability and then optimizers like eAccelerator.

* Uniserver XP is actually a good idea because these days it is starting to lose it's customer base and becomes more and more uncommon

[Heinz Stapff]

Thanks sdogi

 

5.Would like local folder if I could copy to thumb/USB drive?

 

I was asking if I ran a local folder server could I just copy and paste it to thumb drive D: which would solve the portability problem and should be easy if it wasn't for the no spaces in file path change. Would the server run from the thumb drive. I guess the answer would be yes if you ran the servers as programs from the D: drive but don't know.

[DaveA]

Thanks for the report on Eaccelerator! I found that it pegs its memory limit in just a few minutes and Apache starts using all of the CPU afterwards, making work impossible. I was searching for how to disable it and your instructions were right on target