Chat room BOOM!

**AlbertDeschesne** · Apr 3rd, '03, 05:48 PM

Dan -- is there a limit on the number of people that can be in the chat room, or the number of posts before people have to type "clear"? The chat has been imploding every time we get in a lively discussion. And this has only been happening since you rewrote the code IIRC. Can we please go back to old code or do this via IRC or something? This typing "clear" gets old real quick and Darren was in the middle of a really cool discussion when things went BOOM! Anyway, I really do appreciate the time and effort that goes into this, but it's really getting old, fast.

**Evil Thoughts** · Apr 3rd, '03, 06:17 PM

*PLONK*

***Simon*** · Apr 3rd, '03, 07:04 PM

It wasn't the number of users....or the amount of text. The server really has no idea (nor does it care) how much has been transmitted. The amount of text only matters on the client side....where the only affect it will have is to slow things down (lag) when there gets to be too much of a history for your system to handle. Typing clear resets that.

The problem tonight was with a login attempt being canceled at exactly the wrong moment....killing the login listener, which, in turn, caused the server to restart. Unfortunately, the login listener wasn't killed cleanly and the server was unable to restart properly.

The good news is that I found the spot in the code where the problem occurred and have made a couple of changes which should prevent it from happening again.

This does not mean that the chat will never go down again (tonight was the first time it went down in a bit over a month), but it does mean that at least one of the things that will crash it have been taken care of.

I'll keep going through the code to see if I can spot any other potential problem points ahead of time.

**AlbertDeschesne** · Apr 3rd, '03, 07:34 PM

Originally posted by Evil Thoughts
*PLONK*

Plonk? Why the plonk? I asked Dan a reasonable question and below he answers me quite nicely.

Originally posted by dsimon
It wasn't the number of users....or the amount of text. The server really has no idea (nor does it care) how much has been transmitted. The amount of text only matters on the client side....where the only affect it will have is to slow things down (lag) when there gets to be too much of a history for your system to handle. Typing clear resets that.

The problem tonight was with a login attempt being canceled at exactly the wrong moment....killing the login listener, which, in turn, caused the server to restart. Unfortunately, the login listener wasn't killed cleanly and the server was unable to restart properly.

The good news is that I found the spot in the code where the problem occurred and have made a couple of changes which should prevent it from happening again.

This does not mean that the chat will never go down again (tonight was the first time it went down in a bit over a month), but it does mean that at least one of the things that will crash it have been taken care of.

I'll keep going through the code to see if I can spot any other potential problem points ahead of time.

Thanks for reponse Dan, I know you do your best with the code and I can only imagine how much work it is. I do appreciate you taking the time to do this and answer my little rant.

**keithcurtis** · Apr 3rd, '03, 08:50 PM

Originally posted by Evil Thoughts
*PLONK*

Silly Evil Thoughts, Plonk is for Trolls!

Keith "Plonk, yourself

" Curtis

**Crimson-Hawk** · Apr 7th, '03, 12:16 PM

Plonk? What's a Plonk? And why is it so offensive?

"It's Plonky, it's Plonky, oh what a wonderful ploy! It's fun for a girl and a boy!"

**keithcurtis** · Apr 7th, '03, 02:48 PM

Originally posted by Crimson-Hawk
Plonk? What's a Plonk? And why is it so offensive?

"It's Plonky, it's Plonky, oh what a wonderful ploy! It's fun for a girl and a boy!"

I just posted this a few days ago on another thread:

Plonk is the response reserved for people whom the speaker perceives as a troll (i.e. one who is stirring up controversy for no reason other than the chaos it brings).
The reasoning is that trolls feed on response and attention. They wish to drag people into emotional debate so they can fan the flames further. The word plonk contains nothing for the troll to work with. There is no argument, no statement, nothing quotable. It simply means, "I think you are a troll and I'm not going to give you any satsifaction." That is the general meaning of the word as used on the internet.

FWIW, I don't think PLONK was appropriate in this case.

Keith "Mr. Helpy-Guy" Curtis