POSTS Take a Looong Time

[rlawson]

My server all of the sudden has started to take a long time when conducting a simple http post to send an email. All GET requests and database access work fine.

I have a Cobalt raq4 and php 4.3.2 with Apache.

It has been running for months with no trouble and there is no load on the server and reboot did not fix it. Could it be a php problem or APache?

Clueless,

Ron

[tekky]

maybe try inserting a microtime variable at the start of your scripts in question and microtime check - the start time, and compare how long the script executions take....

might just be an issue SENDING the data to the browser.... not actually processing it...

[rlawson]

Thanks for the response. Good idea. It actually took 81 seconds from the top of the php page to the bottom. It is just a simple page to send an email and I only sent a couple of words.

Any other insight?

Ron

[tekky]

thats the php processing time!?!?!?

maybe show us the code you are using... I could certainly test iton a site I have access to.... b ut that is outrageous if thats php processing time... not display time to your browser...

[rlawson]

Thanks, I know it is not the code. I have been using the email function for over 4 years now. I actually think it is a problem with the server. Like I said, it started out of the blue and I see now that the email server has also stopped. I haven't changed a configuration on the server in over two months. All pages doing a HTTP POST have this problem.

This all began with the latest Sun Sendmail Patch. It is either some type of hung server process or a gremlin. I submitted a POST on Sun's site, but I am not crossing my fingers. I ran "PS AUX" as root and there is nothing eating up server cpu either.

---------- here it is for kicks --------
if(the form was submitted){ /// process the form below
$POST['comments'] = substr(AHPfilter($POST['comments'], '', ''), 0,1000);
$POST['subject'] = substr(AHPfilter($POST['subject'], '', ''), 0,150);
///[e-mail]
mail("[e-mail]", "Feedback: ".$POST['subject'],"
This email was sent from the CPI folder from:
Name: ".$SESSION['clientfirstname']." ".$SESSION['clientlastname']."
Email: ".$SESSION['clientEmail']."
Member ID: ".$SESSION['clientRowID']."
Subject: ".$POST['subject']."

Comments: ".$_POST['comments']."

Date: ".date("m.d.Y h:i:s a")."
Requester: $SERVER[REQUEST_URI]
Script: $SERVER[PHP_SELF]
OS: $SERVER[HTTP_USER_AGENT]
IP: $SERVER[REMOTE_ADDR]
PORT: $SERVER[SERVER_PORT]
Referer: $SERVER[REFERER]
Method: $SERVER[REQUEST_METHOD]
", "From:Site Feedback<[e-mail]>");
print "<BR><BR><center></b>Thank you $SESSION[clientfirstname]. An email has been sent to Customer Support.</b></center><blockquote><i>".nl2br($_POST['comments'])."</i></blockquote>";
}

Ron

[tekky]

just an idea... you said your mail server had stopped... can you login to a unix shell and send a mail using 'mail' and see how long that takes? maybe the mail() function is hanging waiting for the server response so it can return the propper value...

or write another simple script that only mails a 1 liner to your account to test how long that takes....

[rlawson]

Thanks for the reply again. Yes, I can send an email from the command line and I get it in my pop3 account a few seconds later.

However, you are on to something! I see now that the other pages which are only collecting data run fine, even my picture upload script. But any PHP script that sends an email will hang for a long time. I keep getting the following in my mail log:

Oct 22 16:15:28 cobalt2 sendmail[6677]: NOQUEUE: localhost [127.0.0.1] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA

MTA is sendmail. So it is not PHP evidently. PHP appears to be waiting on the system.

I appreciate the help. If you have any other advice, I would gladly take it. But it looks like a non-PHP issue now.

Ron

[tekky]

cant you force php to use methods other than sendmail.... or atleast specify some options to help direct it to better interact with your system?

[rlawson]

Good morning. The server magically corrected itself. Good old Linux I guess. Not sure why, but all emails are back and operational fine now. All PHP pages run at record speeds again. I am thinking maybe one of my shell scripts in my cron.daily last night corrected it. I will keep my eye on it.

You were a big help. Thanks.

Ron

[tekky]

glad its all running now 🙂

[OhLordy]

<?php

for($i=0;$i<500;$i++) {
    shell_exec("/bin/php -q /path/to/file/script.php &");
}

?>

This will run 500 executions of the script script.php concurently, then just check your processes to see how quickly it's running them.
HTH
Rob