PHP / Apache mad bug!!

MGSteve

Just wondering if anyone else had seen this before:

I have a script, (a.php) lets say. It includes files, one of which is file b.php - the db base class.

I run the script (a.php) via the browser and spot an error in file b. I fix the file, upload it and refresh the browser. However, the problem still exists, even though the file on the server is the fixed version and the page is definitely being refreshed (i.e. its not a cache problem).

The script works fine on my local server, but when its on the on the live server, I'm having to restart apache for the change to be recognised.

Is this a known PHP / Apache problem?

Its PHP 4.1.2 / Apache 1.3.26 / Linux (Debian)

sarah

It still might be a caching issue...I've had a similar situation where updates work in the test environment, but not in production. I normally end up either clearing the cache in my browser or deleting the file from the server, viewing the page it is included in (fun errors), and then uploading the new included file. Don't know what the deal is, but it's annoying.

MGSteve

I viewed it with both IE and then NS7 (from a fresh start), so I'm sure its not a browser cache problem - jsut a thought - if it was, why would restarting apache always fix it? 😕

sarah

true...sorry that didn't sink in...

MGSteve

no probs, thanks for your reply anyway.

here's some more info:

I've just got the error to repeat itself, I get : "Fatal error: Call to undefined function: execquery() in /home/mgr/cars_html/classes/dbbase.php on line 229 " - when on line 131 of dbbase.php on the server, ExecQuery does exist.

To get that error, I changed ExecQuery to ExecdsdsdQuery, saved it, ran the main script - saw the website running fine when infact it should give the error above - restarted apache, ran ran the main script again and got the above error. You can even delete all the content from b.php and if the site was running before, it would still run as if there wasn't a problem, delete the file and you would get a file not found error when it was tried to be included. put the empty file back and it would still run OK, when obviosuly, it shouldn't.

MGSteve

So, noone has any idea as to why this is happening? 😕

coditoergosum

Have you confirmed that there's absolutely no way that it's a caching problem (client side)? Have you tried loading the page on a totally different machine?

The only other thing I can think of would be a server side caching issue (kind of unlikely). This would probably only be the case if you're using 3rd party hosting... because if you're the sys admin you'd probably know whether or not your server is setup to cache on the server side. There's a method some people use to reduce server load where you cache the results of a page output by a script. For example, lets say we have a script called a.php. You call a.php for the first time and get whatever output from the script... and this output is cached. Then you make a change in the script, upload, and call the script again... because the server has the results of a.php cached already, this time instead of using system resources to parse the script, it just spits out whatever it has cached for that page. This would explain why restarting apache fixes it... it clears the server side cache. That's a simplified version of the process, but you get the idea. Might be a long shot, but if you use 3rd party hosting you might want to ask them about it.

Does this happen on every script, or just this particular one you're having problems with?

mpirvul

If b.php script is 'included' in a.php script. When you update the b.php script, the a.php timestamp is not being modified. I know that there have been bugs in the past about include files being modified yet not reloaded because the webserver is ONLY checking the a.php script timestamp for caching purposes. Another problem can be that the file date/time stamps on your local machine, and remote server, maybe be different whereas, the file you are uploading is actually OLDER then the one you are overwriting due to the fact that someones clock is a bit off. To alleviate the problems, try saving your a.php script to update it, even if there is no change to it, and upload it to the server after you have uploaded the changes to b.php.....and check your clocks and timezones.

Hope this helps, good luck.

MGSteve

I've checked with the hosts, it uses the APC PHP caching engine, I disabled it, restarted apache and it did exactly the same, so its not a caching issue either client (I've accessed it from two PCs now, one with its cache disabled) or server side.

I'm flumuxed as to what is the problem, I just know it goes away when you restart apache.