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    www_server: 14 million "[err] main: handle_new_request failed" halt server

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    • Article Type: General
    • Product: Aleph
    • Product Version: 18.01

    Description:
    About 1 hour ago, Web OPAC came to a standstill. In the www server log I see:

    2008-09-19 11:38:03 84 ----- [err] main: handle_new_request failed
    2008-09-19 11:38:03 84 ----- [err] main: handle_new_request failed
    <etc.>

    grep shows that there are more than 14 million occurrences of this message:

    apps-r-18(1) CUN01-ALEPH16>>grep -c handle_new_request www_server_4500.log.1909.1138
    14160922

    Resolution:
    Two sites reported this problem. The temporary solution is to restart the www_server.

    We checked the www_server log (with diagnostics in place) at one site which was getting this problem repeatedly. The error that we get from the “accept” function is

    “[errno 24] Too many open files”.

    This means that the number of file descriptors defined for the process is not enough. We checked this number by using the “limit” command.

    aleph@libtstdb(a20_2):~/a20_2/alephm>limit descriptors
    descriptors 256

    We believe that increasing the value of this parameter could solve the problem.

    This can be done by changing the system value of this parameter:

    limit descriptors 4096

    [The preceding corrected the problem and prevented the error messages.]

    Note: in version 20 we have been setting "limit descriptors" to 32767.

    • Article last edited: 10/8/2013