[horde] Error: No connection to server

Fri Nov 4 18:40:15 UTC 2011

On 4 November 2011 12:12, Ronan SALMON <rsalmon at mbpgroup.com> wrote:
>
> Simon Brereton <simon.brereton at buongiorno.com> a écrit :
>
>> On 4 November 2011 10:39, Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Zitat von Simon Brereton <simon.brereton at buongiorno.com>:
>>>
>>>> On 4 November 2011 10:11, Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Zitat von Simon Brereton <simon.brereton at buongiorno.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have one installation of Horde that is available on three different
>>>>>> URLs
>>>>>> (https://webmail.example.com, https://webmail.example.net and
>>>>>> https://webmail.example.org) and although users are encouraged to log
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> on
>>>>>> the domain corresponding to their email, because the authentication is
>>>>>> against the IMAP server, it would work on any URL.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I now have one user who is getting:
>>>>>>        Error when communicating with the server.[Thu 03 Nov 2011
>>>>>> 02:04:28
>>>>>> PM EST]
>>>>>> and
>>>>>>        The server was unable to generate the message list.[Thu 03 Nov
>>>>>> 2011
>>>>>> 02:04:29 PM EST]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This happens for one user regardless of the domain they log in on.  It
>>>>>> doesn't happen for any of the other users..  Unless changed users are
>>>>>> presented with the Portal page - which doesn't load for this use.
>>>>>>  Changing
>>>>>> the URL to imp/ starts to load IMP and then errors above occur.  Ditto
>>>>>> changing it to kronolith/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The logs aren't very forth-coming.  Here is one login session for the
>>>>>> user..
>>>>
>>>>>> Googling the errors, I saw a comment by Jan to check the apache logs -
>>>>>> those turned up this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [Thu Nov 03 17:35:01 2011] [error] [client 77.101.63.17] PHP Fatal
>>>>>> error:
>>>>>>  Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate
>>>>>> 24
>>>>>> bytes) in /usr/share/horde4/kronolith/lib/Kronolith.php on line 698,
>>>>>> referer: https://webmail.example.net/imp/
>>>>>> [Thu Nov 03 18:06:53 2011] [error] [client 38.104.167.66] PHP Fatal
>>>>>> error:
>>>>>>  Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate
>>>>>> 64
>>>>>> bytes) in /usr/share/php/Horde/Date.php on line 1055, referer:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://webmail.example.net/login.php?horde_logout_token=TrLYKvGPlLzBE4nfF2NO4JSVSUZGs4nfF2NO4JSVSUZG6Zo6hB0&logout_reason=4
>>>>>> [Thu Nov 03 18:07:25 2011] [error] [client 38.104.167.66] PHP Fatal
>>>>>> error:
>>>>>>  Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate
>>>>>> 75
>>>>>> bytes) in /usr/share/php/Horde/Date.php on line 1054, referer:
>>>>>> https://webmail.example.net/imp/
>>>>>> [Thu Nov 03 18:07:27 2011] [error] [client 38.104.167.66] PHP Fatal
>>>>>> error:
>>>>>>  Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate
>>>>>> 75
>>>>>> bytes) in /usr/share/php/Horde/Date.php on line 1054, referer:
>>>>>> https://webmail.example.net/imp/
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, the error message can't be clearer.
>>>>
>>>> For you maybe - but why would only this user have a problem with
>>>> Date.php?  Are you suggesting I raise my PHP memory limit?
>>>
>>> It's not a problem with Date.php. But the limit has to exceed
>>> *somewhere*.
>>> It happens to be in that file.
>>> And yes, that's what I'm suggesting.
>>
>> This doesn't explain why it's this one user.  This doesn't explain why
>> the problem persists if I force all the users to log out and it still
>> affects that one user.  This doesn't explain why it persists even
>> across an apache restart.  This doesn't explain why that one user is
>> still having an error today despite the fact that the memory limit
>> error doesn't appear in the logs today.
>>
>> Finally, what would you suggest is a suitable memory limit for ~100
>> users?  Currently I have 128M (which is about 7 times the php
>> default).
>>
>>  456 ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (128MB)
>>  457 ; http://php.net/memory-limit
>>  458 memory_limit = 128M
>
> This can happen (it did happen over here) when opening a message containing
> one (or more) big attachment.

I'm not happy.  I'm fully prepared to believe it's my server admin
skills and not a specific horde issue - but:

a) this only happened since the upgrade yesterday
b) it's one specific user
c) my user-base is miniscule
d) my apache logs are not showing the memory error today at all.

I logged into the users account with Evolution - their inbox had two
mails (out of 12) over 1 MB - 9.7 and 6.2 - so 12 mails totalling less
than 25MB

I moved those mails out of the Inbox and the issue persisted.

I raised the memory limit to 256M and was able to login on horde finally
Log out.
return the mail to the inbox and I'm still able to log in.

Questions.
My personal mail box is well over 200 mails and is much bigger than
25MB - and yet I don't have a problem.  Why would one mailbox with
25MB cause an out of memory error and mine doesn't.

How does this scale?  I never have more than 30 simultaneous
connections.  How do sites cope with 1000+ users?  If you need 256MB
memory limit for 3 users (that's all I've had today, do you need
multiple gigabytes for 1000+ users?

Why is only one user affected when the memory limit is reached (and
that persistently across apache restarts?

Finally, I'm not comfortable with having a global memory_limit of
256MB for PHP applications.  However, if I add php_value memory_limit
256M to the .htaccess in the horde4 folder, I get an Internal server
error.  How can I raise the limit for Horde and Horde only?

FYI - since yesterday, users (including me) who have horde as their
default application after login have not been able to see the portal
page.  Changing the URL to imp/kronolith/etc. works - initially I
thought this was to do with the weatherdotcom expiry, but a) not all
users use it and b) since raising the limit this problem too has been
resolved (although I notice the horde menu on the right is taking
longer to load than before).  So if nothing else, I've had to double
the memory requirement just to be able to use 4.0.11

Simon