Bad Gateway Zone: Act 502

[caseykz]

I seem to get 502 bad gateways a lot more frequently these days. Is it just my device?

[Badnik Mechanic]

No happens to me too.

Just refresh the page, usually fixes it.

[Tara]

It's not an error, it's the staff telling you that your Gateway computer sucks.

(This joke is hilarious right now, but when I get after my nap a few hours from now, I'm going to see this and cringe)

Serious answer, though: This issue has been looked into for awhile, although we still haven't pinpointed the exact reason it happens I don't think.  It's not a huge problem, since as Hogfather said, it usually goes away with a single refresh.  But it definitely appears to be a problem on our side and not the member side.

[Indigo Rush]

Can we at least change it to "Bad Gateway Zone: Act 502"

it'd be funnier

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

1 hour ago, Indigo Rush said:

Can we at least change it to "Bad Gateway Zone: Act 502"

it'd be funnier

they heard you lol

[Indigo Rush]

oh my gosh yes <3

[bmn]

In seriousness, do people see 502 errors anywhere else on the server besides SSMB?

Going to try something out - the site will run more slowly as a result, but I believe it'll cut out these errors.

[Tara]

5 minutes ago, bmn said:

In seriousness, do people see 502 errors anywhere else on the server besides SSMB?

Going to try something out - the site will run more slowly as a result, but I believe it'll cut out these errors.

Only on the forums as far as I'm aware.  Last I remember, Chris thought it was a skin issue, but when it started happening on all the skins, that shut down that theory.

[bmn]

As far as I can tell, this is what's happening. The programming language tech that makes the forum work is PHP, and it runs as a program (or rather, a number of programs, so as to be able to handle multiple requests at once) separate to the main web server software (nginx). These PHP instances are the legendary Gateway you may have heard of. So, nginx takes your pageload request, sends the gateway the details, the gateway generates the page, and it gets sent back to nginx which sends it to you. If nginx can't connect to the gateway, or the gateway doesn't send back a valid response for whatever reason, you get your 502 error.

In essence, something (I believe it's something the forum code is doing) is triggering a buggy behaviour in PHP that causes an instance of the gateway to become unstable and need restarted. If your pageload is the one that does it, you get the 502. Don't know why, but I have a hunch it may be to do with one of PHP's optimisation things, which the forum makes use of quite heavily.

[Stritix]

I'm not sure if it's involved with this error, but sometimes nothing loads when I click on the next page of a topic. It's just the site's background. It's quite unusual. I'm not sure if it's an error with SSMB or if it's an error with IPS4 as it is.