Filemaker Server Advanced & Speed Issue

[jfrancis]

We are hosting 8 databases and have 15-20 users and web access. The database are hosted on a G5 dual x-serve, with 8 GB of RAM running Mac OS X Server v10.3.9 and Filemaker server advanced v7.3. This is a dedicated server with no other applications running. We have been running these database for a month with no issues. Yesterday the speed of the databases where fine in the morning and dropped significantly in the afternoon. Today the first user experience a significant drop in speed after only performing 3 tasks (which included a simple find and viewing and updating 1 record at a time).

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for as the culprit to the decrease in speed issues?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[BrentHedden]

I'm no expert in this field, but here are a few ideas that have come across my mind -

- Check any log files to see if anything unusual has happened.

- Is someone accessing/accessed this server that shouldn't be? If so, what did they do?

- Does someone have an open connection to the database(s), but has been idle for a long period of time?

- Reboot the server. Obviously, this is a last choice, but there might be some hung process that slowing everything else down.

[jfrancis]

The only thing I see in the log file are the normal opening and closing of databases by known users. We have one external user who we asked to log out for the day, but no luck. Looking at the web log, there are several tomcat errors... is the web access potentially creating hung process? We have a web site that allows access to the three of the databases via fx.php

[BrentHedden]

I know very little about Apache. Do the errors say anything specific, or could you post them here? Not saying that this is the specific problem, but it could lead to something......

[jfrancis]

Here's a snippit of the errors from today:

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:02 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1011)]: Error sending request body

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:03 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 0.356561

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:04 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1011)]: Error sending request body

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:04 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 0.130096

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:07 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (738)]: ERROR: can't receive the response message from tomcat, network problems or tomcat is down. err=-54

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:07 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1137)]: Error reading reply from tomcat. Tomcat is down or network problems.

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:07 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1290)]: ERROR: Receiving from tomcat failed, recoverable operation. err=0

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:08 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 1.036286

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:23 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (738)]: ERROR: can't receive the response message from tomcat, network problems or tomcat is down. err=-54

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:23 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1137)]: Error reading reply from tomcat. Tomcat is down or network problems.

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:23 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1290)]: ERROR: Receiving from tomcat failed, recoverable operation. err=0

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:24 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 0.370011

We are also noticing that the databases are not backing up every hours as they are scheduled. They appear to only back up at the time that is in the start field. For example we have a start of 03/28/2005 18:28 PM, and this is the only time the backup runs. No sure if this means anything to the speed issues....

[Martin Brändle]

2 ideas come to my mind:

- did you also apply the FMS7A v3 WPE updater?

- monitor your processes with the Activity Monitor utility ( /Applications/Utilities ) or the top command in the Unix Terminal to find out which process makes problems

With respect to backups, check that the permissions of your backup folders are correct (drwxrwx---), and that they belong to the fmsadmin group.

[carl_vrijsen]

I have almost the same configuration (30 FM users, and 20 websites with FX.PHP), and had VERY much problems with FX.PHP!

I'm changing al the websites that use FX.PHP now to FMandPHP. This language is much more stable, much faster, and gives more possibilities then FX.PHP.

My server did crash a lot with FX.PHP. And since I'm changing the code of the websites to FMandPHP, the crashes are going away...

[papintosh]

I have the same error

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:02 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1011)]: Error sending request body

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:03 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 0.356561

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:04 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1011)]: Error sending request body

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:04 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 0.130096

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:07 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (738)]: ERROR: can't receive the response message from tomcat, network problems or tomcat is down. err=-54

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:07 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1137)]: Error reading reply from tomcat. Tomcat is down or network problems.

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:07 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1290)]: ERROR: Receiving from tomcat failed, recoverable operation. err=0

[Fri Apr 22 18:13:08 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 1.036286

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:23 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (738)]: ERROR: can't receive the response message from tomcat, network problems or tomcat is down. err=-54

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:23 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1137)]: Error reading reply from tomcat. Tomcat is down or network problems.

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:23 2005] [jk_ajp_common.c (1290)]: ERROR: Receiving from tomcat failed, recoverable operation. err=0

[Fri Apr 22 18:14:24 2005]wpc X.X.X.X 0.370011

Some one resolve this problems??

[xochi]

I've been having tomcat errors too -- only solution i found was to reboot the server (restart the computer).

[Reed]

FMI told me there is an incompatibility between 10.3.9 and Server Advanced. (10.3.9 broke some of the java stuff that FMSA needs to run properly) It still works for me, but I get the same error messages reported here. The tech told me either to revert to 10.3.8 (pain in the a**) or upgrade to 10.4.2 (also a pain, but less so) I'm just continuing to run as is until there is a problem, or until I have time to do a clean install with 10.4.x.