Components on win3

[Logan]

Yash, win3 doesn't have ASPImage or Jmail, and I suspect that all other components are not installed either. I have submitted tickets 6188 and 6373 for the installation of ASPImage and JMail.

BTW: I received my billig notice for the next month. I am tempted not to pay a cent since I have not recieved much actual hosting service from Jodohost in the last few weeks. Fixing the above problems would go a long way in restoring confidence.

 

[Yash]

I think both have been installed now, let me know if not

And Robert, let me remind you that it was your site that was causing problems for us, not the other way around. Everything Win1 froze, your site was on top of the request list with the highest CPU usage I've ever seen. I worked with you alot on this issue, I gave you possible reasons. You have a 120MB access database which could be one.. I instructed our administrators not to disable your site and if they have to, only temporarily

Win3 is a "special" server we have.. We shifted your site to this server so that it would not affect other sites on our production servers while you resolved the issue. I hate to be harsh but these are the facts.. Our normal policy is to ask our customers to look into these issues at their local server but we put you on an isolated server so you can take your time over the weekend to solve the issue. This is an entire server for yourself. And ever since we put you on Win3, Win1 has not had a single issue of high cpu usage..

I do hope you appreciate what we did.

 

[SubSpace]

Ouch, 120 MB Access database...
Seriously, you might want to consider porting the whole thing to a real database platform (MS SQL, MySQL, Postgres are all offered) instead of the utter crap they call Access..

 

[Logan]

I think both have been installed now, let me know if not

And Robert, let me remind you that it was your site that was causing problems for us, not the other way around. Everything Win1 froze, your site was on top of the request list with the highest CPU usage I've ever seen. I worked with you alot on this issue, I gave you possible reasons. You have a 120MB access database which could be one.. I instructed our administrators not to disable your site and if they have to, only temporarily

Yash, I beg to differ on several points. Firstly, all I have ever been told is that my site caused high CPU usage and to "fix it". I have never been told what kind of problems my site caused (other than the blanket statement of high-CPU usage) or what parts of mys ite are causing problems. I have advised many times that I have testing all pages on my dev box and everythign works as expected, and does not cause any adverse affects. But then my dev box is Windows 2000 not 2003. Despite this, I have double-checked some of my pages and everything appears fine.

You and others at Jodohost told me that you would look at my code and tell me what was causing your server problems. No one at Jodohost ever came back to me with anything. I would have happily looked at something specifically, if you had.

I appreciate being placed on win3, and I am more than willing to test somethings on your web hosting environment, but you need to ensure that all the components that were available on win1 are on win3. To date, ASPImage is still not installed/working. And while I have not tested "Persits.Upload" I am willing to bet this one isn't available either. Both were available on win1.

The size of the database may be a concern, but I don't believe it is the source of the problem. I have been running with such a database at that size for months at another web host, and in fact, it was running fine for several days on win1 without incident. I had advised you that I cannot easily move to SQL server, but it is something I am considering.

Since moving to win3, which I am told is a Windows 2000 box, my site has worked flawlessly, with the except of the images, which are dependant on ASPImage. As soon as you ensure this is installed (check ticket 6188 which is now 21 hours old) I can perform another couple tests.

I also asked you how I can tell if my site is causing the server problems since I cannot access any of the server performance data. I never received a response from you or anyone else from Jodohost. Can you provide me a contact or a method of checking the CPU usage?

While I find it difficult to understand how my site could cause the problem you have indicated, and I have not recieved any evidence to date that demonstrates concrete problems with my site, I have tried to do the best I can to help. However, I have received very limited help from Jodohost, short of disabling my site on numerous occasions, and repetative useless responses to my tickets.

I don't want to move to another host. I would like to resolve the current problems. But since the problems are an apparent incompatibility between my site and your web hosting environment, we have to work together. I may be able to change the code, but I need your assistance in getting to that point.

 

[Logan]

I think both have been installed now, let me know if not

I just received a reply to my ticket which stated that ASPImage was installed. I checked and it still doesn't work. I checked the expiry date and it's Nov 27, 2003. The quality of the tech support staff at Jodohost needs to be addressed.

I have updated the ticket accordingly.

Why does it take 21 hours to install an expired component, and why did an expired componet get installed at all???

 

[Yash]

Robert

Firstly, there is no way for us to determine what part of your site is causing problems. We can only determine if your site is causing these issues

Also, we exchanged several emails if you forgot. I gave you suggestions... i.e. it could be MS Access related. I suggested you try disabling scripts you suspect of being problematic and I'll let you know if CPU usage drops. In one instance, I asked you to hit your site a couple of times and I as well as our administrator sat behind our monitoring system to determine what page could be causing the issue.. you can't say we didn't work with you

We gave you whatever information we had. When your site was disabled, one of our admins emailed you with the possible solution of shifting you to another server temporarily. I went over the ticket responses as well, and they did address all your questions...

Win3 is a Windows 2003, not Windows 2000 machine by the way. High cpu usage is an OS independent issue. You can't replicate this locally because you can't replicate the traffic you get locally...

Our administrator have just installed AspImage, JMAIL and ASPUpload on your request

As of now, the CPU is hitting 30% frequently. Thats 30% of a P4 2.4GHZ processor.. However its not sustaining that usage at the moment for longer than a few seconds... We noticed that on Win1 as well. Only in certain cases your website was sustaining very high cpu usage that froze the server

There is no such thing as concrete evidence.. No one can provide concrete evidence.. Only an experienced administrator can tell you it is.. and I as well as our team are telling you that.. I see MS Access as the most probable reason

 

[Logan]

Robert
Win3 is a Windows 2003, not Windows 2000 machine by the way.
...
Our administrator have just installed AspImage, JMAIL and ASPUpload on your request

Thanks for the info ref Win2003. ASPIMage is still expired though!

 

[Yash]

I just received a reply to my ticket which stated that ASPImage was installed. I checked and it still doesn't work. I checked the expiry date and it's Nov 27, 2003. The quality of the tech support staff at Jodohost needs to be addressed.

I have updated the ticket accordingly.

Why does it take 21 hours to install an expired component, and why did an expired componet get installed at all???

Robert, win3 was never meant to be a production server and thus we never bought licenses for these components for it. But we just did and installed the license key, for you and only you. And these licenses aren't cheap

It greatly discourages me to hear a customer call our support poor when we have done much more than we are obligated to do

 

[Logan]

Robert, win3 was never meant to be a production server and thus we never bought licenses for these components for it. But we just did and installed the license key, for you and only you. And these licenses aren't cheap

It greatly discourages me to hear a customer call our support poor when we have done much more than we are obligated to do

I see that the ASPImage problem has been fixed. I will close the ticket. I have been loading a few pages and everything seems to be working as expected, and quickly. How am I to know which page has any affect on CPU usage, when I can't see the CPU usage?

Also, I never indicated that support was poor. I said that quality needs to be checked. This indicates that support is inconsitent at best. Personally, I have seen support very good, or very bad, but rarely mediocre or average. I relish the times we recieved excellent support, and cringe when we receive very bad support.

If you can advise on how I can determine impact on CPU usage, I can continue.

 

[Yash]

I'll be setting up the monitoring system to record CPU usage..
I'll present its findings to you.. there is no particular page I believe that is causing high usage, its your site overall. But there is some script or sequence of events that is making it even worse

I strongly recommend you begin by coverting to MS SQL.. I also recommend that if you are running anything that you suspect is causing high usage, let me know and I'll monitor it very closely

 

[Yash]

Have a look at this graph. In a 15min period, your site caused cpu usage higher than 40% 5 or 6 times and made it hit 100% on 3 occasions - just in 15minutes

 

[Logan]

Have a look at this graph. In a 15min period, your site caused cpu usage higher than 40% 5 or 6 times and made it hit 100% on 3 occasions - just in 15minutes

Can you save this log to disk and send it to me via e-mail, so I can see when exactly this happened? I can then cross-check with the web server logs to see what activity occured at that time?

Also, I can't look into SQL server until my payment has been processed. I just sent it via paypal.

Thanks.

 

[Logan]

Have a look at this graph. In a 15min period, your site caused cpu usage higher than 40% 5 or 6 times and made it hit 100% on 3 occasions - just in 15minutes

Yash, are you able to provide me any server performance logs? If so, can we arrange a window during which we can capture the data? If so, I would like to agree on a window, so I can perform some targetted tests.

Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

 

[yorri]

Ouch, 120 MB Access database...
Seriously, you might want to consider porting the whole thing to a real database platform (MS SQL, MySQL, Postgres are all offered) instead of the utter crap they call Access..

Your statements are rediculous. Access supports up to 2GB and many MANY sites have larger databases running without a problem (except maybe corruption of the database but that renders it useless...it won't cause the server to have problems).

Access is a REAL database and is used by thousands of people around the world. If anything it has an issue of concurrent users...not size! and as I said...maybe corruption although I have NEVER had an access database corrupt on me EVER! and that has nothign to do with server performance.

 

[yorri]

I checked and it still doesn't work. I checked the expiry date and it's Nov 27, 2003. The quality of the tech support staff at Jodohost needs to be addressed.

This is typical of the experiences I have had to deal with here too. You are not alone malemanes. I have to spend hours dealing with support to get stuff working every time I am moved to a new server. It's as if nothing is ever tested.

 

[SubSpace]

Access is a REAL database and is used by thousands of people around the world. If anything it has an issue of concurrent users...not size!

Let me just say that I've seen performance improvements of up to a factor 150 after porting large complicated databases from Access to MS SQL or MySQL...

 

[Yash]

Yorri, a 2GB access database might be OK for you, but its going to kill our CPU with the usage

And the component expired because we didn't have an immediate license for Win3, yorri! We set this up especially for your friend. And we've only had an expired component case once 2 month ago (eko complained) which we corrected immediately

 

[yorri]

Let me just say that I've seen performance improvements of up to a factor 150 after porting large complicated databases from Access to MS SQL or MySQL...

Well as you just said...improvements..which to me indicates that it didn't crash your server.

The other thing is that it is also dependant on the number of visitors. There are many factors in which you would choose to either use Access of Sql Server. Not all applications require enterprise level database performance.

When I create an application I PROPERLY evaluate the needs of the company/person and if only 20 people (for sake of argument) are going to access the database, I am not going to require the company purchase and install a sql server just for 20 people. There is also a difference between something that is slow and something that causes a server application like IIS or sl server to crash. The latter being a serious problem...and I have encountered tons of Jet engine problems that Microsoft has created by releasing updates over the past few years. This is not the fault of the customer.

Feb 2nd I had a client upgrade a database security patch even though I told him to always ask me before upgrading those things but stupid people get paranoid and do things without thinking...anyway..what happened...it rendered his access website dead. I told him that I warned him and will not develop anymore on his server. The same thing happened back in October and I actually made a post here warning Yash about the possiblity of damaging access application becuase of one of the security updates that my client installed (it was back then that I told him to never to install something without my permission...but did he listen NO)

My point is that it is not always the customers fault that issues like these happen. Almost ALWAYS it is because of updates/upgrades that cause these issues and as an administrator of a machine it is their responsibility to keep up to date on these things to know what might cause a problem and what might not. That is what they are paid for, no???

Stephen said there are issues with the Jet engine on Windows 2003 that were admitted by Microsoft...so why would Jodohost update to 2003 when so many of their customers would be using access databases is beyond my understanding...maybe this wasn't known at the time but to me 2003 is untested new technology that needs time to work out the kinks and a web host should be the last to jump right into these things as it affects their bottom line...the customers.

 

[yorri]

And the component expired because we didn't have an immediate license for Win3, yorri! We set this up especially for your friend. And we've only had an expired component case once 2 month ago (eko complained) which we corrected immediately

I realize the issue about expired component on win3 now but you are wrong about the expired component...it happened last fall or summer as well...with the same component.

Why didn't you test that these components were working is the problem I have. It is a bad reflection on you testing policies/practices. You keep saying you do proper testing but if you did you would realize these things don't work.

Also don't forget the 2 or 3 times Jmail hasn't worked on my sites since I have signed up. These are just the component problems that I know about.

 

[Yash]

OK Yorri so in 8 months, out of all the servers we have setup, each server having 20 + components each, we have forgot to register a component only twice (once in summer and once in January)

And as soon as someone reported it to us, we corrected it. As far as I remember, you faced a JMAIL issue only once which we corrected immediately as well...