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Timeout backfires
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 3:14 pm
by josh
Right now there's a 30 second time out on the search, or something like that. I notice if you click view your posts and view active tops (control click to open in new tab) and if you do it fast enough both go through (thus executing 2 searches per 30 second window instead of 1), if you are too slow the timeout is registered. Seems counter-intuitive, its incentive for me to pwn the server more
I know this is something that's not worth fixing but worth noting. The search timeout has always been one of my biggest complaints, and after all we are on a bigger server now.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 5:12 pm
by VladSun
+1
My Opera browser has SpeedDial refresh enabled for DevNetWork forums (every 5 minutes), my dreambox set-top-box has a script fetching new posts on my topics (every 15 minutes) ... and when I click on "view my posts" and want to search them for a keyword ... blah

Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:36 pm
by josh
Yea if someone has malice intent they'll just run it thru tor or some other anonymity/VPN service. Its probably more harmful for someone to request the logo in a loop than it is for them to temporarily increase the server load, because that way we'd incur bandwidth costs.
Without going into more detail, I feel this is one of those areas where we're not deterring the bad guys, but are hurting the good guys.
Before pytrin resolved the locking issues for us, the timeout actually helped. Before that I understood it, now I don't see the point. We should use mod_qos to block too frequent of requests to any page, but 1 page per 30 seconds is ridiculous. mod_qos could be used to block more than 30-40 requests per second per IP, that is more than reasonable. If the server is attacked the timeout can be used as a response measure, and appropriate action can be made at that time. pingdom is a free hosted ping monitor that will alert you if response time increases to above 30 seconds.
http://www.pingdom.com/
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 1:44 pm
by VladSun
Really guys, pay some attention to this issue... it's very annoying!

Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:57 pm
by pickle
I've mentioned this in the moderators forum. I'll get back to you once I know something.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:43 pm
by Weirdan
Can't reproduce. How does it look like - like standard browser tcp timeout or phpbb custom styled page?
Anyway, post a screenshot.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:33 pm
by VladSun
Here you are

Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:41 pm
by pickle
Maybe it's a restriction that doesn't apply to mods/admins - as when I open a new tab for the "View ... posts" links in the top right, I get all three right away. We'll need an admin to look at this, as I'm sure it's a phpBB setting.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:08 pm
by josh
pickle wrote: I get all three right away.
I can replicate that by being fast, but if I try to go slow I get the timeout.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:09 pm
by Jonah Bron
Aaaaah! Opera!??
Well, at least you're using Linux...

Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:15 pm
by VladSun
Jonah Bron wrote:Aaaaah! Opera!??
Yes, it's fast

really fast
And I always have a Firefox opened - for development/debugging

Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:16 pm
by josh
Yeah my friend swears its faster than chrome, he calls chrome bloated, haha. What does that make firefox? Morbidly obese?
But yeah, this is definitely not browser specific. Its based on whether you're a mod or not, that makes sense.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:56 pm
by Jonah Bron
VladSun wrote:And I always have a Firefox opened - for development/debugging
Phew.
josh wrote:Yeah my friend swears its faster than chrome, he calls chrome bloated, haha. What does that make firefox? Morbidly obese?
I use the latest Firefox 4b12, so I don't know anything about this "slow, obese" you speak of

. The latest builds really are fast. In fact, I saw a chart that stated that TraceMonkey is actually faster than Chrome, though that doesn't speak for DOM rendering speed and the level of responsiveness of the browser itself. But 3.6 was bad though.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:11 am
by josh
Yeah? Try comparing cold start after a fresh bootup. Chrome beats firefox badly.
Re: Timeout backfires
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:44 am
by Jonah Bron
Not too bad, but it might be different on Windows. Firefox took about 2 seconds, Chromium took about 1. But also, I was talking about the Javascript engine, not the browser

. Actually, bootup time never bothers me, because I almost never close my browser. I just suspend at night. Ah Ubuntu, how I love thee
