Merged Last post date "42 years ago" - access denied to topic - database errors

marfisk wrote: Maybe the simplest thing would be to make the post deletable.

perhaps but I think that you could only do that if there was some way for the application - the Kunena component - to be able to access the records. If there's a referential integrity issue - as I suspect there is - this is a moot point.

There are, in effect, two questions in this topic.

(1) What is causing the "42 years" / access problem. We know the underlying cause is a database issue. We don't know, yet, the point of origin, what's responsible for causing the database error.

(2) What do you do to fix the problem? We do know the answer here: you need to patch up the database.

I don't understand the answer. Patch up the database how? Do you mean when it occurs go into the database to fix it on a case by case basis? Or am I missing something as far as a real, long term solution?

marfisk wrote: I don't understand the answer. Patch up the database how? Do you mean when it occurs go into the database to fix it on a case by case basis? Or am I missing something as far as a real, long term solution?

Yes, exactly. I mean, do as we do here: patch the database as, or when, required and if it's important enough for you to do this. At K.org we experience this "42 year" phenomenon one time in every few thousand messages posted at this site. When these things happen we either choose to fix the error or we ignore it.

I do not doubt that a search of Google may show hundreds of thousands of results with the text "42 years" and Kunena. But what about searching for "Topic started 42 years" AND Kunena ?

These things undoubtedly happen and it would be good to know why they do and it may be reassuring to know if there's something that can be done to either (a) prevent this from happening or (b) easily remediate/recover from the problem after it has happened.

As I was attempting to suggest earlier earlier in this topic, the solution depends on how tightly people value and demand data integrity.. If one were running a business that depended for its existence on having a database solution with zero tolerance for error, then, if this were my business, I would not be reliant upon MySQL as my database solution ... and neither are businesses whose existence depend on having the most reliable, durable, robust and scalable database solution that money can buy.

We have not eliminated the possibility of unintentional PHP coding errors or code-injected exploits of database integrity, but I think we should try to obtain a realistic assessment of the scope of the problem and the effort involved in dealing with it. I'm not implying that there is an absence of interest by the Kunena project team to investigate these issues - I am aware that there has been a discussion on this topic - but I don't know what the team has decided can or will be done about this issue as a long-term solution.

The business of the Kunena project, as conducted on this site, is dependent on the software functioning properly but, in the rare cases when things don't always work, I would not say that the business of the project has been seriously threatened by those failures either.

This is where I want to leave my involvement in this topic. My recommendation is to fix the problems on a case-by-case basis. Other people are entitled to their own opinion.

sozzled wrote: At K.org we experience this "42 year" phenomenon one time in every few thousand messages posted at this site.

For a one in a thousand error, this seems like a reasonable approach.

On the affected website I look after, it has been more like 20% of posts. This makes it a high maintenance product so unless I'm confident the issue can be fixed, why would I risk installing Kunena on any other website?

Neil

Neil,

To follow up on the connectivity issue, on the site where you have a 20% drop off, how do the users connect?

We've seen it only twice so far, but we just switched to this software this week, and people are still migrating in, so it's not a viable sample.

The issue for us is that it's a volunteer organization, and of all the volunteers, I'm the only one with DBA experience. I shudder to think of the dangers posed by unskilled folks wandering about the database making changes. I'm helping another volunteer expand her knowledge, but if I were hit by a bus today, there would be no one on staff capable of making back-end fixes. The point of WP and therefore of related plugins is to take the "dangerous" work out of the hands of those without the training. allowing them to run the complex websites reasonably.

marfisk wrote: on the site where you have a 20% drop off, how do the users connect?

The website has been running fine and without issue until I installed Kunena. There aren't many registered users or posts yet and the database issue has happened only a few times but usually results in multiple rogue entries being generated that have to be cleaned up.

Neil.