MODx trashing Apache on Localhost?

Quote from: OpenGeek at May 11, 2007, 10:49 AM

Any bets on TemplateSwitcher and or DisableCache plugin being the source of the problem?

Anyone who bet on TemplateSwitcher can collect now.

For diagnostic purposes, I didn’t do the upgrade install.

I just went to Manage Resources / Plugins, edited the TemplateSwitcher plugin and clicked on delete. Everything is now fine as far as I can tell.

This place rocks when it comes to getting help. I’ve been working on this for a week and it would have taken me forever to discover that it was TemplateSwitcher since I had never used it for anything.

I’m still curious about a couple of things:

1. I can understand the plugin causing trouble in rendering the site but does anyone know why it would bring down Apache? After trying to load index.php, my XAMPP Apache was dead as a doornail until I restarted it. I always thought Apache was notoriously robust.

2. If this is a known issue, why is TemplateSwitcher installed by default? (not complaining, just curious). Perhaps a parenthetical note next to it in the install page could serve as a warning.


Thanks a million for all the help -- Now I can get back to solving all the problems I’ve caused.


Bob

Hi Bob,

Answers to your questions:

1. In some setups, it could lock the document processing into an endless loop. The only way you’d get out of one of them is either to restart Apache or wait for Apache to crash and have Apache perform one of its infamous Core dumps (where it dumps the contents of its current memory to a file and restarts itself - these files are normally pretty damn large).

2. The Template Switcher is now history for the core distribution. It will not be distributed as part of MODx 0.9.6 (and was removed from 0.9.5.1 as well). However, if somebody upgraded from an earlier version then it needs to be manually removed.

Thanks.

Do you know where Apache puts the core dump? I should check to see if I need to delete one.

Bob

Normally in the root of the site. All the ones I’ve managed to create have a standard filename of Core_xxxxx where the x’s are numbers.

I’ve only ever had Core dumps on shared hosting servers (where there’s set limits on the memory usage) so I think you’ll probably be alright as you’re running on your local machine.

As an border-line off-topic aside -- he’s running on Windows so there won’t be a core dump. Not that Windows apps aren’t great about leaving huge messy debug logs when they crap their pants, they’re just not the same as core dumps on Unix