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Most members of NewMars have encountered this error.
Until today, we have generally just tried to work around the problem.
Every now and then a member may report the incident, or mention it in passing.
Because the Admins are engaged in a slow but sure process of upgrading the forum software, it occurred to me that we have an opportunity to attempt to pin down anything that might be consistent from one AISE event to another.
I have not seen anything like that in my many encounters with AISE, but there might be something.
In the next post, I'll report a surprising observation.
(th)
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Every morning I update the recruiting topic in hopes we might eventually draw someone new into the active membership.
The update consists of a very small number of entries ....
The update is done in two steps. The first completed without incident.
The second update adds the current post number, at the bottom.
AISE occurred. What is unusual about today's update of the current post number is that I deleted the entire count. Usually I only delete the numbers at the end that have changed. AISE objected. I closed that post, and reopened for another Edit. This time I only deleted the three numbers that were different and added the new ones, and AISE was happy.
The reason I bring this up is that in the course of working on the forum software, i've become aware of the feature that supports the fast lookup capability that is available to members. There is at least one table where words are stored. That table contains many (hundreds of thousands) of entries. It just occurred to me that a sequence of numbers might count as a word. When I accidentally deleted the entire number for current post, the system would have had to perform a lookup in the word table. It may well have entries for all the number strings that members have entered over 20+ years. I'll take a look the next time I'm working with the database.
In any case, AISE was happy with a change of only three numbers.
(th)
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tahanson43206,
We will change the logging level for any errors not being recorded in our logs. There will always be some unavoidable errors that we cannot resolve with configuration changes on our end, such as packets of data not being reassembled correctly on the receiving end (hardware and software issues somewhere on the net between the user's machine and our PHP web application server), network-related issues with writing to the database, etc. So long as those errors are logged and gracefully handled, that's about the best we can do there.
In some cases, the internal server errors generated when users attempt to post seems related to non-printable characters in their post not being properly escaped. I have experimentally replicated the issue with posts that, unbeknownst to me at the time, contained these non-printable characters, based upon some bit of text or content from the internet included in the post. There could be and probably are other reasons for the failures of the web server to properly process and store the posts made into our database.
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For kbd512 re #3
Thank you (hopefully again) for your observations about the Apache Internal Server errors we've been seeing in this forum.
I am hoping that if we succeed in upgrading the package from 2012 to 2024, the AISE situation will go away, if (by chance) is is related to the old software we are forced to use under the php files.
However, in the mean time...
For all ... a number of NewMars members have reported encoutners with AISE, and specific issues that came up and were resolved to post.
Today I encountered AISE with a simple post of just a few lines... I've been refining a technique for dealing with AISE, and would offer it now if anyone is interested...
I copied the entire post from the Preview window into a text editor (like notepad)...
Then I deleted the contents of the Preview window and added one line at a time back into the Preview window and clicked Preview.
I continued this process until the AISE occurred... I deleted that line from the preview window and left a space. I then added the rest of the post.
When all but that line was passing Preview, I added words from that line until AISE occurred. I deleted that word and clicked Submit.
There are mechanisms in the forum software that look at individual words for legitimate reasons, such as building the search index.
The search index gives us the powerful search capabilities we use frequently, but clearly there is something going on that causes a failure.
If we finish the task of bringing FluxBB 1.5.11 forward from 2012 to 2024, and if we decide to KEEP FluxBB as our forum package, and if AISE still occur after the upgrade, then we might be justified in looking more closely at the index update part of the search function.
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For kbd512 re your observations about extended characters possibly related to AISE...
In the process of updating the software, I encountered older designs of code to deal with the European/Asian extended character sets.
The early versions appear to have been less than ideal, and part of the upgrade process was to replace them.
It seems possible that at least a few of the AISE problems may go away when we implement the more up-to-date functions for dealing with extended characters.
(th)
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It also seems to be key word tripped as well since the words.
ADMIN
BUDGET
are just a few that have, but they seemed ok this time.
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One of our members reported an encounter with the dread Apache Internal Server Error today....
I wrote back a long email, explaining how to deal with that when it occurs.
Anazingly enough, AISE objected to something in this post...
To summarize:
1) Save the text in a separate program such as Wordpad
2) Delete the text from the post that failed
3) Add one line at a time back and press/click the Preview button
4) When AISE occurs, you have found the line that contains the problem.
5) Delete that line and continue adding lines until you've added all lines.
6) Submit the revised post.
If you still want to include the line that was rejected, do that by editing the post and add one word at a time.
Obviously, omit the word that causes the error.
Submit the edited post.
***
Update a bit later
The Admins have been focused on lifting the software we are running from 2012 standards to 2024 expectations. Work has gone well, and it is nearly finished. We are beginning to think about new features we might add, after the software is running reliably at 2024 levels.
In addition, it might be possible for us to tackle the AISE, if it is still present after the upgrade. The error occurs when a member clicks on Submit or Preview, so we can monitor the flow of events. The problem for those dealing with AISE is that by the time Apache reports the error, it is too late for diagnosis, because the error message has a great many causes. The way we might deal with this is by obtaining a post that reliably causes the error, and then tracing the flow of logic as the error occurs. In doing the upgrade, we have acquired tools that allow us to perform that level of detail tracing.
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For all ...
I got an AISE this evening, while trying to post a request from GW Johnson.
The post went into the clone we are testing without a hiccup.
If anyone else in our current active membership encounters an AISE, please consider testing the post in the clone.
Everyone who was a member in September of 2023 can log in and run the test.
The address for the clone is: http://40.75.112.55/forums/FluxBB/index.php
The more members who can help with testing the better. We may be just days away from installing the updated system.
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I think another feature for the forum would be a excel paste view or internal viewer for such content.
I will go to GW's web site to look at the information.
I see that the upload file share automatically gives the sheets display rendering.
Maybe a dropbox topic with the content links makes sense for each new forum as it applies.
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For SpaceNut ....
Thanks for starting to think about where to put the latest files from GW.
I am holding the files until you tell us where to put them. There is an updated spreadsheet and several pdf's on how to use it.
I don't think you'll find it anywhere else. Please tell us where to put in in the new structure.
This is a academic study on rocket design, suitable for NewMars members who are willing to pull down a spreadsheet and learn how to use it.
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For all ... I have confirmed through multiple tests that the word t a r g e t ** always ** causes AISE.
I am hoping our new FluxBB package will eliminate AISE.
We are waiting now for the State of Texas to be free of hurricanes long enough for our Webmaster to be able to back up the existing database. That is the first step toward installing the updated software.
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