Process limit exceeded for uid ******

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Nathaniel
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Process limit exceeded for uid ******

Post by Nathaniel »

Hello,

I have a client which I just finished a site for. He started marketing, and now his site is crashing.

"Internal Server Error - Process limit exceeded for uid 11147"

What does this mean? Is this the MySQL processes? (Somehow I got this in my head, but I can't remember how.)

The support email seemed to state that it's because a script is hanging, but if so, how do I know which one?

- Nathaniel
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Add logging at various points. Analyze the data as it comes in, add more logging where things look suspicious then repeat.
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volka
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Post by volka »

I guess the client is using cgi, i.e. each time a request is handled a new process is started. And this process does not stop.
On an unxi-style machine you can use ps to show all processes attached to an uid
e.g.

Code: Select all

ps -o uid,user,pid,ppid,args -u 11147
see http://opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/ps.html
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Nathaniel
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Post by Nathaniel »

Thank you feyd and volka.

Yes, this hosting company is running php as a cgi module. They don't give us shell access, so I can't run "ps", but thanks anyway volka!

feyd, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to log. Would you please elaborate?

Thanks,
- Nathaniel
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pickle
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Post by pickle »

Some hosting companies still allow your scripts to run shell commands. Just wrap what ~volka said in shell_exec().
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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Nathaniel
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Post by Nathaniel »

Thanks pickle! That works a charm.

It appears that the hosting company finally fixed it, (before I could run that unix command, no less), so I'll have a chat with my client and see if the host emailed him any information about how they resolved it.

Cheers guys,
- Nathaniel
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