Spam-O-Matic crashes large forums

[Vcize]

I posted this over in the Spam-o-matic plugin thread on vbulletin.org, but never heard back.

It appears that this plugin leaves some keep-alive connections hanging, which goes unnoticed on small forums but can bring the admin site on larger forums to a screaching halt.

When I have the plugin enabled, any time I try to save anything on the admin site (not just within this mod, but anywhere) it will time out. As soon as I disable this mod, the problem goes away.

Here is what my host said about the issue. Again this seems to go away when I disable this mod..

Most likely, the code within the forum is allowing Keep-Alive connections, but it looks like they do not get closed efficiently and they stay open. This bogs down Apache, as it only has a certain number of connections allowed to be open at once. Have you had a developer take a look at the code and optimize the way it handles keep-alive connections? I would start there, and if there are any server-side configurations that the developer would need in order to optimize the site code, just open a ticket and we'll get it set to whatever they need.

It only seems to affect my largest forums, so I'm guessing that there is a bug in there leaving connections open and most forums just aren't large/active enough for the problems to be visible.

[Matt]

This is the first I have heard of it and Spam-O-Matic is used on some of the largest boards around, for example Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet

I will take a look at make sure all the connections are closed for good measure but it would be strange for this to only come up just now after being in productions for a couple of years already.

[Dmitriy]

SOM is not using its own DB connection. It doesnt' even have the code to connect to the DB or change connection settings. VB connects to the database each time its code is triggered & SOM uses that connection. If VB software leaves the DB connections open, this is the issue with VB setup or a bug in VB software. I'd suggest talking to their support.

[Vcize]

Hmmm.

It's worth noting (and I meant to mention in the OP) that this is the version of the plugin for VB 3.8. Are there any really large boards on 3.8 running it?

All I am able to narrow it down to is that when I have this plugin enabled, I get the problem. As soon as I disable this plugin, the problem goes away.

[Matt]

I am not sure what size boards run 3.8 but that version of vBulletin and SOM are no longer supported.

[Dmitriy]

SOM for VB3 don't have the code to connect or administer DB connection too. There's some other problem or a combinations of a few. SOM talks a lot to remote servers & cURL library may slow the scripts down (if remote servers are slow to response). If this is the case - you need to set lower cURL wait for response timeout. Another possible case - VB is setup to use permanent connections or normal connections, but long auto-close timeout. This all needs to be checked and tested. I think you hoster is right - some developer need to have a look.