Critical error - bailing out

Yesterday I've decided to cleanup my Elief webspace of older ocportal installations. Most of my older ocportal sites were added automatically through the Installatron feature of my cPanel, so I used that feature to also delete them very conveniently. I deleted 4 out of 17 sites. My public_html root does not have any ocportal files except for an .htaccess. All my sites are in different folders. Error emails started to come in stating that my other sites files permissions were wrong and systems were bailing out. I was able to access some sites adminzones to clear my templates_caches, but got similar errors. I've used cPanel file manager to delete the templates_cache manually in each theme folder and now I cannot access the sites adminzones. Although I have not enabled persistant_cache on my main website it has some 22mb of files with last activity dated last night. Trying to access it from my FTP or cPanel gives a data error. I do not remember if it can be safely deleted. 

template_cache directory permission is 0755 and files were 0644.
The now empty templates_cache are no longer written to.

Critical error – bailing out

Cannot write to /home/domain/public_html/web20/themes/classroom/templates_cached/EN/ATTACHMENT_DOWNLOAD.tpl.tcp. File permissions for it (or the directory it is in) have not been set correctly.

Jean-

I believe that eLief is having some issues. I just put in support tickets for two different items.

First, I have a bunch of "En error occurred" in ocPortal's members online listing. When I went to check the cPanel Latest visitors, there was absolutely nothing there. I then tried downloading the current raw access log and got an error 404.

Second, I tried downloading the backup (which is updated nightly) of the raw access log and found that the entries stopped at 4/4/12. Not sure what to make of this.

I am awaiting their response but you might want to put in a support ticket regarding your issues.

Bob

Jean-

Another interesting data point – my cPanel resource Usage Log indicates that I have flatlined, using no CPU, memory or having any entry points. It indicates that this has been an issue for a protracted number of hours.


Bob

Thanks for the info Bob!
In a way it is reassuring.

I've placed my ticket earlier in the afternoon to Elief and received a quick reply offering to reset my files permissions, but I did not see anything wrong on the ocportal files and folders and did not agree on the offer. 

I've also checked my cPanel resource Usage Log at the time and noticed that flat line from 1:00PM on and attributed it to a slow Sunday, lol. I've checked again just now and had to retry a few times getting on cPanel. It is still Flat-line.

Let's hope it will be fixed soon!
edited by Jean: Just got my main website back. Oo
Hopefully it will progress positively from there!

Jean

It's interesting that Pingdom just recently reported a "service disruption" (it was not there earlier) on Server 2 where shared accounts are hosted.

And I continue to be able to call up pages on my site without any errors but ocPortal is reporting all these errors in the online members screen.

Bob

Jean-

Just came across this when trying to checl the ocPortal error log:


Except, like you, when I check them, all the directories on the path are set to 755.

This is the second time this week that I hap supposed file permissions issues; eLief claimed that the reason that my Installatron backup disappeared was due to wrong file permission. That turned out to be a red herring as the backup needed to be restored from the backup.

While I have been generally happy with eLief hosting, it seems that there have been more issues lately and I am questioning if they will continue to be my hosting solution.

Bob

Bob,

So technically you've been having similar problems. The way mine were resolved might interest you:
 
According to Elief, my sites started to work fine again after their technician changed the permissions of the directories to 775 and the files to 664. The ownership has been changed to mydomain.nobody. 

I'm waiting on an explanation and the reason why this was necessary. I need to make several new installations of ocportal on my domain in the next few days and that is disturbing. I'm concerned about the security issue of changing those permissions. I've tried to search our forums and documentation about this and couldn't find anything. I would wish for someone in the know to enlighten me on this when time permits.

Jean 

Jean-

Yes, the same problem – essentially a permissions problem at the highest level (suExec) due to a conflict between a new cPanel update and Litespeed.

This problem appears to be resolved now and this was the explanation I was given:

eLief support explains problem said

The problem was both litespeed and cPanel

cPanel just recently pushed their latest version all the way to the bottom of their versioning, so the STABLE release is now running 11.32

Something in 11.32 is making a new option for apache "mod_ruid2" seem enabled, even though the unused apache (due to litespeed) has not been recompiled since last year, and does -not- have that module.

Litespeed was somehow thinking this module was active, and breaking the PHP suExec functions (which let PHP run as your user, instead of the owner of the litespeed processes "nobody")

I must be a tougher customer than you as all my permissions remain at 755/644.

I am still having the issue that the monthly raw access log has not been updated since 4/4/12. This is supposed to be updated nightly as the current day's logs are appended to the monthly log. Hopefully, they will have this resolved soon.

Bob

BobS said

Jean-

…I must be a tougher customer than you as all my permissions remain at 755/644. …
Bob

LOL, that's for sure!
Maybe my tech rep was not aware of the high level problems…I've just received a reply from him essentially saying the same as yours.

My guess is that the changes in permissions are no longer necessary.

I'm glad it is getting resolved. This morning I thought I was the one who brought the house down! I've lost my entire Sunday testing and searching for ways to repair my sites.  

By the way, in spite of my earlier grumpiness, I must acknowledge the (once again) excellent support I get from eLief.

The reason I left my former host (HostGator) was due to mounting problems, but more importantly, a lack of a clear, understandable explanation of what the issue was when something went awry – I always got something like "It's fixed now so you don't need to worry about it."

Even though I have been extremely frustrated today, I had excellent communication with eLief's tech support staff and a clear explanation of what happened. This is one (of several) reason it would be hard for me to leave eLief. Although I must admit that some previous communication with their staff has been less transparent, I will just assume that his is the company dealing with some growing pains. They certainly redeemed themselves well today.

Bob

Jean said

LOL, that's for sure!
Maybe my tech rep was not aware of the high level problems…I've just received a reply from him essentially saying the same as yours.

My guess is that the changes in permissions are no longer necessary.

I'm glad it is getting resolved. This morning I thought I was the one who brought the house down! I've lost my entire Sunday testing and searching for ways to repair my sites.  

Yes, this would have been a server-level issue.

I know what you mean about a wasted day – I was quite frustrated although, to be honest, eLief support was very communicative with me through the day as they tried getting to the bottom of this issue.

It seems this might also explain the strange disappearance of my Intallatron backup last week. I just wonder why the issue took so long to manifest itself in a very obvious way.

I was told that I was one of only two people who used the Installatron backups which really surprised me. I clone my live site then immediately make an Installatron backup; this allows me to easily return to the clone site as it was as I stepped through the v8 RCs.

However, a couple of weeks ago, I found a problem with the Installatron restore function. It restored the files but not the database. I worked with Installatron tech support and they identified the problem and said that they would be releasing the update for it within the next two weeks. I am just hoping that this is included with this latest cPanel update. Otherwise, after the file structure is restored, I need to manually revert the database from the copy in the Installatron archive.

Bob

BobS said

I am still having the issue that the monthly raw access log has not been updated since 4/4/12. This is supposed to be updated nightly as the current day's logs are appended to the monthly log. Hopefully, they will have this resolved soon.

This mystery is now also solved. It seems that the filename changed and the new file has entries from 4/4 up to today although the tech support person was not sure why the filename changed.

It does make one question whether hosts are really paying attention to what changes are made when they update cPanel. To me, this should have been documented for customers via email so that they would be aware of the change. Heck, I'd go so far as to say that they should advise whenever there is a software update so that people are neither surprised if a problem occurs and are more likely to quickly provide feedback when issues arise.

Bob

C_panel updates, in most cases, come as a double edged sword. The driver, in most cases, is some important security aspect, but then along with the update comes all the trivial stuff the team has been developing since the last. Basically so the update is one shot dose, instead of many small reoccurring updates, which drive hosting providers nuts.

Actually, as a none open source control panel and a sizable priced one, it would be better said that C_Panel should pay more attention to how they broadcast their releases and updates. Hosting providers certainly (most of them because it becomes more work for them in the long run) do not want the head aches, thus the reason they have purchased software such as C_Panel. 

But, in the end, the world ain't perfect and this certainly pertains to C_Panel. 

I just wanted to add that I do agree totally with a host provider alerting its clients on future updates. Doing a broadcast or e-mailing to clients would make them look much more prepared, but also save time and effort explaining it individually in each support ticket or chat.

Good to hear that the issue is being resolved for you guys.

I'd be surprised if cPanel does not provide a changelog. While this does not fully-address your issue (that updates be smaller and more modular), any host pushing the update should be acutely aware  of what's changed and know that this is the first place to investigate.

When a problem suddenly pops up after I update to the current stable version, I certainly check the changelog to see if there are any clues.

Bob

Captain Kirk said

I just wanted to add that I do agree totally with a host provider alerting its clients on future updates. Doing a broadcast or e-mailing to clients would make them look much more prepared, but also save time and effort explaining it individually in each support ticket or chat.

Good to hear that the issue is being resolved for you guys.

My point exactly. It actually has the benefit of recruiting more aware "testers".

Bob

Found yet another issue – awstats is not updating over the past couple of days.

Clearly, this is a buggy release of cPanel or cPanel is just not playing nicely with Litespeed servers.

However, eLief has been doing a good job of running these issues down. I haven't heard back on this issue yet but it should hopefully be resolved soon.

Bob

BobS said

Found yet another issue – awstats is not updating over the past couple of days.

Clearly, this is a buggy release of cPanel or cPanel is just not playing nicely with Litespeed servers

Tech support forced an update to the stats, however, the numbers still seem light. I suspect yesterday's problem may have not properly updated logs and such.

Going to keep an eye out on this one but it is hopefully closed and the last issue to deal with from this cPanel update.

Bob