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April 04, 2012 10:12am
Subscribe [0]#1 / Apr 04, 2012 10:12am
Twice since Monday I have had an EE install website go down because of a corrupted database table. The offending table has been exp_online_users both time. This site does not use public member logins, so only site administrators have access. Any idea what could be causing the table to become corrupt?
EE install version: v2.1.3 Build: 20110411
Any recommendations aside from upgrade to the most recent version? This site has been in use for almost 2 years and this is only a recent problem.
#2 / Apr 05, 2012 9:21am
Hi, LWT -
When you see repeated table crashes that need repairing it most often indicates that the MySQL database server is running out of storage space. This is something best addressed by your host.
Can you check with your host to make sure that there is plenty of available hard drive space / space allocated?
Please let us know what you find out.
Thank you!
#3 / Apr 05, 2012 10:01am
Good Morning Lisa,
The database total size looks like 15.4 MB. This doesn’t seem like an excessively large size that would cause the problem you mentioned. It could still be another server related issue, so I will keep an eye on the problem. I had a similar issue with a lot of WordPress sites about a year ago, and from what I remember it was related to some possibly hacking attempts on the host (it wasn’t only our sites). Is it possible that someone is trying to gain access to the database and causing the online users table to crash?
Thanks
#4 / Apr 05, 2012 12:30pm
Hi, LWT - regardless of the size of your database, if there are other items taking up disk space then it could easily run out of space. Honestly, that’s the only reason I’ve seen for repeated table crashing so long as it was repaired and optimized after the first instance.
I have not seen hacking cause this - I’ve seen hacking cause all sorts of other things, but not this.
Of course, you are on a version that is a year old (20110411 is May April 11, 2011), so I would strongly encourage you to upgrade. Lots of bug fixes, a few security fixes, and new features abound. If there is something up with the software that is causing this (again, I think this is unlikely but I won’t rule it out) then upgrading should fix it.