I doubt the problem is specific to any particular page. I’ve seen it on all kinds of different pages that then work fine a few minutes later, and also even on the top-level forums page.
[quote]General Error
Could not get main information for similar topics
[/quote]
I have disabled the Similar Topics modification for now - at least until we sort out why our SQL database doesn’t seem to be working properly
So for these types of errors, those topics are accessible now
[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”]I think someone added something that will tell you if something with a similar topic name exists, but it doesn’t work. Or something.
You’re right, it’s nothing wrong with those threads (as was sometimes the case with these sorts of errors), but something wrong with the mod.[/quote]
The mod was installed 2 months ago - I don’t know why this started acting up last Thursday. No changes were made to ANY code of our forum since last weekend
Debug Mode is just a title in the program to tell us that something is wrong. Usually, it tells us where the program stopped, which often is near where the problem is.
This particular error happens in the Viewtopic.php file, and indicates where it is in the code. When I open that file and look for that line of code, I try to work backwards to where the problem may have happened. (Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work)
At least, I hope to figure out what was supposed to happen so I can narrow my search on the phpBB support forum at phpbb.com/community/search.php - then I can look for topics that report the same problem
It will help speed things along for all of us if you can search that forum or post questions there, too. Please email admin @ forumosa.com with links to possible answers.
The mod was installed 2 months ago - I don’t know why this started acting up last Thursday. No changes were made to ANY code of our forum since last weekend
[/quote]
Which mod was it? Dragonbones? Have you tried uninstalling him?
I couldn’t get into the forums at all on Thursday evening. PMs were OK though.
We thought about uninstalling DB, but he’s already too integrated into the code that removing him would probably disrupt other systems. The best time to remove a mod is right after its been installed. After more modifications have been made, it’s a real pain to undo things
In the case of the Similar Topics mod, I haven’t really removed it, just “disabled” (we call it “Commented out”) the relevant code. I don’t think there is a problem with that feature per se, but there is a problem in the database and we need to figure this out or other things could fail, too
I was offline all Thu night after 4pm. I was alerted by SMS that there were problems, but by the time I could check it seems Malc had already made a short-term fix. I am unsure if what happened Thu is the same as this because I never saw it. I didn’t see any details about the problem that night
I suppose you’re on the way making the whole system too complicated … too many ‘bells&whistles’, to many links, overloading the look-up for the database … not that I know anything about it but I’m on other forums that keep things to the basics and never had any debugging page come … and they also use php …
Only now you have figured this out? I’ve been tweaking and modifying this forum since 2002. I can’t believe you only realized this now!
IrishStu hasn’t been completely uninstalled, I still see bits of him around. Maybe you could delete him completely ?
i’ve been trying to log in for over an hour this morning, and kept getting the “debug mode” message. I think you guys have a Big Fluffy Problem of some sort. That’s my critical scientific assessment.
got the debug message about 30 minutes ago when i hit NEW
what’s up?
(of course, if this works… something else is up)
What’s up with this:
Is it working now?
It does!
Damn, all I could do is edit my profile, and nobody even noticed my cry for help. sniff
Yeah, and all the posts I ‘failed’ to make suddenly appeared, so I’ve got a quintuple post. 
I had about eight of them on a thread about Windows Vista also. Whooops.
Better than the error I kept experiencing last night when attempting to log onto this site. It went something like this:
phpBB Critical Error: Failed to connect to database
[quote=“Chris”]Better than the error I kept experiencing last night when attempting to log onto this site. It went something like this:
phpBB Critical Error: Failed to connect to database[/quote]
I got that last night too.
Ditto, this morning.
It’s beginning to seem like this error is a result of our lack of disk space on our server. We are still studying the problem, but it does look more and more like we will need to create more space (and thus raise our monthly server costs)
Stay tuned.
How about deleting the first five years? While storing them on DVD or summat for your own use…
Who actually searches and posts back that far?