Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
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Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« on April 15th, 2011, 12:15 AM »
Very strange. But more importantly -- dangerous for the project.
My WAMP server was down. Wamp = down means I can't develop Wedge locally anymore. And I'm definitely not excited about developing and testing it remotely, really...

I did absolutely nothing-- well, I tuned on FIP Radio (online) and listened to the Portico Quartet concert, then went for a cigarette, and when I came back, the radio was down.[1]

I couldn't log into my local website after that -- or any site for that matter. One of my two httpd.exe process was using 50% of my CPU time (i.e. one core at 100%), and it keeps opening new handles. After about 2.040.000 handles, CPU use goes back to 0%, handle count doesn't increase anymore, and the Net is down for me (anything on port 80 I'd say), including non-local stuff. Once I kill the httpd.exe task, I get my Net back.
Sounds similar to what this guy had:
http://www.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=41141&view=previous
Upon which he was told to switch to Linux. Great... To solve what, an Apache (=from Linux world) memory leak?

Now this is very annoying, because it started without warning, and it stopped without warning either -- all in all the problem lasted for a couple of years.

Anyone got an idea about this?

http://www.wampserver.com/
Apache 2.2.11
PHP 5.3.0
MySQL 5.1.36
Changed absolutely nothing to the default setup. Worked perfectly until an hour ago. And yes, I rebooted my machine just to be sure... :-/
The only thing I did when it 'came back', was that I only started the Apache module, not the rest. I doubt this is related, because I'd left my server offline for several minutes, and I tried to restart all services at once anyway, and I'm not getting the error again...

Oh, how I hate Apache.
 1. And *of course* I was recording it because PQ is my favourite jazz band and they never released a live album and I was so thrilled by their concert last year that I wanted to have it in my archives... >_< Thanks to this problem, I'm missing the last few minutes of the concert.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
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Re: Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« Reply #1, on April 15th, 2011, 12:28 AM »
That's definitely odd but I have seen cases where Apache does fail, badly, under Windows and fails like that.

Interestingly, I've never hit it in almost 10 years of running an Apache instance locally, but I've only once done so with WampServer and that was a hideous experience, I gave up after 15 minutes of prodding it.

I always run with the official distribution, and have always done so for Apache, PHP and MySQL, and it's never let me down yet.
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Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
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Re: Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« Reply #2, on April 15th, 2011, 12:50 AM »
I don't really see how I could set up this stuff myself and be happy with it... Server maintenance is really not my thing.

Arantor

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Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
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Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« Reply #5, on April 15th, 2011, 12:59 AM »
I didn't even touch mine when I did that ;) Though to be fair I did update the auto installer script.

But I still swear by that approach, it means I have tighter control over the components and it's given me less hassle over the years.

CJ Jackson

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Re: Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« Reply #6, on April 15th, 2011, 01:05 AM »
Apache from the official site is complied with VC6 and can be unstable for that reason especially with XP sp3 and above, I have had problem with that myself keeps crashing now and then.

You can try downloading the one from Apache Lounge as those binaries are compiled with VC9 which has better performance, stability and memory management, never had any problem with it.

http://www.apachelounge.com/download/

Use PHP 5.3 because that compiled with VC9, also use mod_fastcgi instead of mod_php, it's more matured and stable.

http://windows.php.net/download/

kriation

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Re: Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« Reply #7, on April 15th, 2011, 07:17 AM »
Quote from Arantor on April 15th, 2011, 12:56 AM
Well, that's the thing: once it's set up it's basically *done*; I haven't touched my local config in months.
Concur.

I'm still running the same Apache configuration that I set up almost 8 years ago. Sure, it's been upgraded a smidge, but httpd.conf has effectively stayed the same.

Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
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Re: Strange behavior from WAMP server...
« Reply #8, on April 16th, 2011, 09:14 PM »
Thanks guys for your suggestions. I'll try to put them into action if I ever get the problem again.

(It might have been caused by my installing Windows patches around the time I got the error.)