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Some users reporting time outs

Posted: September 5, 2019 at 7:55 pm

Viewing 24 reply threads


Michael Burroughs

September 5, 2019 at 7:55 pm

I have several users that are reporting a time out on one of our registrations. We are receiving registrations. So I am not sure how to advise.

https://www.lcs.education/events/national-educators-conference-2019/


Josh

  • Support Staff

September 5, 2019 at 8:05 pm

Hi,

I checked the event page and I can see that the “Maximum number of tickets allowed per order for this event:” setting is set to 99. One most shared servers you could see timeouts while trying to register for more than 30 attendees in one go. Even if the server could keep up with processing that amount of data in one request, it may be a challenge for the average person to complete 30+ forms within 60 minutes.

I can advise to set the “Maximum number of tickets allowed per order for this event:” setting to a lower number to avoid time outs.

Also, you could check with your web host about upgrading to a more performant web server. If the site is hosted on a shared server, the site may need more resources for periods of higher traffic.


Michael Burroughs

September 8, 2019 at 6:55 pm

This reply has been marked as private.


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 9, 2019 at 4:30 am

Hi there,

I’ve set the above post to private as you don’t want those settings publicly available (I know it’s set for users to request access, but better safe than sorry).

None of the team here are sysadmins so we generally don’t provide recommendations on server setup.

However, since you have full access to the server have you confirmed what timeout error they are actually getting? I assume you are logging the errors thrown on the site? If not I recommend you set that up and review the logs to see what file/function/process the timeout is coming from.

The above recommendations are good, but may just be patching over the problem waiting for it to happen again, you need to view the error being thrown to confirm what is happening.


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 9:17 am

Thanks, guys. I tripled the memory and the execution time on my PHP. I have absolutely zero errors on PHP or SSL. We use sucurui on this server, but there are no errors reported there either. I am getting registrations. Just sporadically. However, I have users who are being brought back to ticket selection upon clicking to Proceed to payment. I have 651 incomplete registrations and only 318 complete. My users are growing very irritated with us. We have used this product for years with no issues on this very server. Any additional thoughts?


Josh

  • Support Staff

September 11, 2019 at 12:10 pm

Hi,

When the users that get redirected back to the ticket selection report this, do you know if they’re trying to register for more than a few dozen registrations in one transaction?


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 12:52 pm

We limited the registrants to 30. I have a report of a single user, a report of a large group of 24, and a group of 7. So it appears all over the place.


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 1:51 pm

Also, it is capturing some registrants, other are not being captured (i.e. there is no email or name information).


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 11, 2019 at 2:44 pm

I did some testing on the event you posted and sometimes I can add a ticket, add some details and make it to the payment options.

Other times I add the details and when I click to proceed the session has already cleared.

The above is happening within a few minutes of me add the tickets to checkout, its not a timeout but what is likely happening is transients are being cleared on your site.

Are you running any form of object caching? If so disable it, you can’t use object caching with EE be it within a plugin or a drop-in file on the server.

In a previous thread, you mentioned were using W3 Total Cache, is that still the case or something else?


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 2:52 pm

We use W3 cache with these pages set to “Never”

wp-.*\.php
index\.php
/registration-checkout/
/transactions/
/thank-you-for-registering/
/registration-cancelled/

We use SUCURI as a firewall. I will double check on those exceptions as well.


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 2:56 pm

Sucuri is set to NOT cache the following:
/events/
/registration-checkout/
/transactions/
/thank-you/
/registration-cancelled/
/thank-you-for-registering/
/join-today/
members.lcs.education
/contact/
/post-a-job/
/child-care-management-course/
/accreditation-teams/
/exhibitors/exhibitor-application/


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 11, 2019 at 3:04 pm

That’s all page caching exclusions, what about object caching?

Is securi and W3TC the ONLY caching you have enabled?


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 3:10 pm

Im sorry, meant to add, object caching is disabled in W3. I do not have any options like that in Sucuri.


Michael Burroughs

September 11, 2019 at 3:11 pm

I forgot we do use a CDN. MaxCDN is connected to our W3, so it should be replicating that.


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 12, 2019 at 3:50 am

Check within /wp-content/ for an object-cache.php, if you have one, remove it. Copy it locally first just so you have a backup, but either way, it needs to be removed.

What I would do here is create a development copy of the site on the same server, using a subdomain for example.

This should be an exact copy of the live site.

Then start disabling features on that development copy to find what the problem is. You could do this on the live site but I recommend against it as everything will be visible to your visitors.

Start by confirming you can reproduce the problem on stating, add some tickets to the cart, and go to checkout. Wait 5 mins and just refresh the page, does it show nothing in your event queue?

EE session should last 1 hour by default (unless you’ve used a filter to change that, like THIS) and it looks like something is clearing the sessions/transients earlier than that.

Then try disabling the CDN, retest.

Try disabling all of the plugins except EE, switch back to a default theme, retest. If its works, it’s a plugin/theme issue. (If not it could be a server config issue)

Switch back to your theme, retest.

Enable each plugin you have enabled one by one and retest between each plugin until the issue returns.


Michael Burroughs

September 12, 2019 at 3:40 pm

Tony! YOU ARE A FREAKIN’ GENIUS! It appears that one of our developers tried out Autoptomize a few months back and after a few days decided it was not giving us any performance gains and deleted it. In the wake of deletion, it left behind the object cache AND a caching folder under the cache/ directory. What would we helpless earthlings to without you??????


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 16, 2019 at 4:36 am

Lol, it’s a team effort πŸ™‚

We discussed this internally and Josh suggested it could object caching.

Either way, I’m glad your back up and running and it was (in the end) a simple fix πŸ™‚

Any further problems just let us know.


Michael Burroughs

September 24, 2019 at 9:15 am

I am still getting a few errors like the one attached. I am really not sure where to look for this. I have increased max execution time, and memory. Thoughts?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pw-cl6DaKObk6Odvj2m8VGlbijQEHlLI/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z60-mrUDYWZ7gfbTCe-K28HtLqPXF8UJ/view?usp=drivesdk


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 24, 2019 at 9:38 am

Hi Michael,

I can’t view either of those images, can you allow access or set them as public?


Michael Burroughs

September 24, 2019 at 9:46 am

Thank you, Tony. Can you check again? I think I set it correctly. I am traveling today, so I am working from a phone… πŸ™


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 24, 2019 at 10:27 am

Ok, so that looks like the same issue and you’ll need to run through the troubleshooting steps I mentioned above:

https://eventespresso.com/topic/some-users-reporting-time-outs/?view=all#post-299130

Something on your site/server is either clearing transients (object caching usually) or wiping all sessions. It could be a plugin/theme conflict, or possibly a server config issue but the easiest to check is a plugin/theme with a development copy of the site running only EE and a default theme.


Michael Burroughs

September 27, 2019 at 2:24 pm

Final Update…. (hopefully). I isolated the problem to another plugin: GeoDirectory. We use this plugin to feature our member schools. However, it does create an object-cache.php file in the wp-content directory. If it is deleted, the plugin will recreate it automatically. I have reached out to them to find a way to completely disable that function as it is not available as a setting feature. Thanks for your help and input.


Tony

  • Support Staff

September 30, 2019 at 3:40 am

Are you sure it is that specific plugin re-creating object-cache.php?

I had a quick look over the code for GeoDirectory and can’t see anything for recreating that file, that doesn’t mean it isn’t that plugin as it could be an add-on etc but seems strange for that plugin to re-create that file.


Michael Burroughs

September 30, 2019 at 6:08 pm

Thanks, Tony! Good catch! I disabled everything. And reactivated each plugin. You were right. When I reactivate W3 Cache, it recreates the object-cache even though that is disabled in the console. I have escalated this to W3 and am working with them on troubleshooting now. You can close this ticket as resolved on your end. And thank you for going the extra mile.


Tony

  • Support Staff

October 1, 2019 at 2:31 am

No problem, I’m glad you found the real cause.

It makes much more sense that W3 would be recreating that file πŸ™‚

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