[ic] usertrack file reached 2GB limit, caused IC to only return partial pages

[Ron Phipps]

> From: Cameron G
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > Tonight FrozenCPU.com was acting very strange, only returning
partial IC
> > pages.  It was consistent in that the page would stop at the same
point
> > every time.  I setup a test page like this:
> >
> > START
> >
> > [perl]
> > my $out='';
> > my $test=0;
> > while ($test < 40000) {
> >
> > $out .= "$test<BR>";
> > $test += 1;
> > }
> >
> > return $out;
> > [/perl]
> >
> > FINISH
> >
> > And the page would stop at the same point every time.  After doing
some
> > testing on the dev site, making backups of the live site and testing
> > again I narrowed it down to a problem with the file structure of the
> > live site.  I determined it was not the db by using a dev site to
> > connect to the live db.
> >
> > Going directory by directory I quickly noticed that the file
usertrack
> > had reached the 2GB limit of ext3.  I'm not sure why reaching this
limit
> > was causing IC to only return partial pages, but after tarring up
the
> > file and creating a new usertrack file the site returned to normal.
I
> > also had plenty of disk space so that was not the issue.  I looked
> > through the apache, ic, and system logs and the only strange entry
was
> > this in the IC server log:
> >
> > - - - [26/August/2003:21:56:46 -0700] - - page server pid 2237 won't
> > die!
> > - - - [26/August/2003:21:56:56 -0700] - - page server pid 2227 won't
> > die!
> > - - - [26/August/2003:21:57:02 -0700] - - page server pid 2233 won't
> > die!
> > - - - [26/August/2003:21:57:10 -0700] - - page server pid 2231 won't
> > die!
> > - - - [26/August/2003:21:57:16 -0700] - - page server pid 2219 won't
> > die!
> > - - - [26/August/2003:21:57:36 -0700] - - page server pid 2217 won't
> > die!
> >
> > These entries repeated for pretty much every access of the site.
> >
> > Anyway I thought if someone else runs into this issue it may save
them a
> > couple hours of investigation.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > -Ron
> >
> 
> perhaps it's time for a 2.4 kernel... ;)
> 

Actually it is running on Redhat 7.3 with a 2.4 kernel and ext3.
Perhaps I ran into a limit of some other component in the system?

-Ron