I'm not sure what you mean. It's happened at least a dozen times in the past three hours. I think it's related to this new error message thing.

I meant that I've seen some strange things with post numbers on this board in the past, but not 3 'strange things' at once.

It's happened at least a dozen times in the past three hours.

I didn't know that. Your 'connection' theory looks quite reasonable to me, too (but I'm quite ignorant in these things, so my opinion doesn't really matter).

Oh gotcha. Yeah, I think the two are related. I know we've had weird post number things happen but not so many at once. At least once tonight, I went to post, got the error message in response and, while my post didn't appear, the next post number skipped.

ETA: Like what just happened with this post.

ETA: Like what just happened with this post.

And when I tried to read it, I got the post-less screen, like Matt described earlier, and needed to refresh a few times before I saw your post.

[Edit: and I got the error message twice now before I managed to post, and this post # is 2 numbers ahead of what it should be]

For reference, I'm getting

September 22, 2003, 12:38 am Am-Chau Yarkona[354]: ERROR [2] mysql_connect(): User bufforg_phoenix has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections line 77 of file /home/bufforg/public_html/classes/giles.php

There has been an error. It's of the type we call fatal. Please don't be scared. You're not the one that's going to die.

Okay, where the $$&#&(@#& are the developers?

messages, maybe in seven of ten attempts to 'read new'. So you know.

I refreshed my message center and got the header, my name and the logo, no threads listed.

After another refresh I got the whole page, and there was a new message in one of the threads (well, here, as a matter of fact).

The following time I refreshed my message center there was no problem, and there were no new messages.

Lather, rinse repeat. When the message center is being refreshed without problems, there aren't any new messages showing on it. Once it had no new messages, but when I went to the home page, there was a new one posted right then.

Can the half-blank screen have anything to do with the fact that there was a change in the database (a new post)? I am completely juggling geese at this point, and - of course - have no idea what I'm talking about. Just wanted to point out something that may look like a pattern.

I just got a message centre with normal threads listed down the middle, and the error message in the right-hand column. It's like it connected okay for some of it, but not for all of it.

OK, now I needed to refresh a few times without any new message anywhere I could see. Forget my pet theory, then.

The blank page:

Since it takes multiple connections to the database to present each page to the reader, I'm guessing that we're hitting our 'max connections' at some point in the page-presenting process.

That is to say, Nilly, that you start to load a page. The code says, "Give me a page!" and it connects to do that. At this point (hypothetically), it's under the connection limit. The server says, "Okay!" and makes the next connection, and does what it needs to do, like puts up the header. Then, whoops, we're over the connection limit (not just because of your page, but because of everyone's pages everywhere). Then when the code says "Give me the next thing on the page!" (like maybe the list of threads), the server says (now, with the new message), "Nope!"

Normally, that would mean an ugly error message, but I'm guessing that the blank page is just us getting so far, but not seeing an error message for some undetermined reason.

I started this out with the intention of trying to explain a little of what might be happening to the overnighters, but turns out I'm not really being helpful at all.

So suffice it to say, the blank page and the error condition are probably related, and odds are there isn't anything we can do about until tomorrow morning anyway, so don't worry too much for the moment.

And also, since it's happening right now, when the two of you are probably the only ones online (exaggerating), I'm guessing it's wonkiness of one sort or another and not tied directly to current number of users. Or it's spidering or something. Sunday night late seems like a time for that. Even though we're no-bot, some engines don't respect that.

I started this out with the intention of trying to explain a little of what might be happening to the overnighters, but turns out I'm not really being helpful at all.

No, Liese! It does help! I think I understand a bit better how things work now. Thank you. (And it's nice to 'see' you, even if it's in these circumstances).

Another thing I noticed (I have no idea if it's meaningful, again): the message center lists a new message on a thread, and when I get to the thread I get only the last message I already read. Only after refreshing the page do I get the really 'new' message(s).