Maximum PC

Has the 'cool down' time been increased? I've noticed in the last week or so that even a good 15-20 seconds after making a post it will give me the "you must wait etc..." error when trying to post again.

Kind of frustrating.

Ironically, this has been posted all over the place. The setting is 15 seconds, but obviously it's not just 15 seconds anymore and seems to gradually be getting worse.

I know Chams/Six is looking into the email notification problem, but I do not think he is investigating the re-post timeout problem.

My only theory is something like clock drift on the server that's causing it to lose track of time compared to the client side... dunno. It's hard to say without having access to the server and looking into what phpBB does.

I agree that it is very frustrating. We can lower the setting, but if 15 seconds means 45 seconds, 5 seconds will still mean 35 seconds, and if it keeps getting worse, it's not going to matter much.

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POST

I belive it's becuase we're running on a load balanced system... IE there are several web servers feeding the site. MaxPC and all Future Network properties are hosted by a company called Atomz. They specialize is high-avalibility sites for big businesses and corporations.

as a result of what I was say is a safe guess it is clock drift between the servers. phpBB does a basic time check.

it takes the current server time and subtracts from it the time of your last post. if that time is less than the so called "flood time" it exits and throws the error.

The problem arises with the drift between servers. Lets say you make a post on server A and it sets your time for the post. Now you go to post again but this time server B is accessed. Well becuase it's clock is say a minute or two(or God forbid 10+ minutes) behind server A when phpBB does the time check it basically gets a negative value and will throw the error. Every time you try to post if you get server B you have to wait till it's clock catches up to the "fast" server plus the 15 seconds before it'll let you post.

The only way to remove the problem is to remove the flood protection or get the server admins to keep their server clocks synced better. This is surprisingly a simple thing to do yet too many admins never think to even do it. It's very important especially in load balancing situations.

Pointless but interesting fact: php and mysql use the unix timestamp for tracking times. Unix timestamp is the measure of seconds that have elapsed since January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT. This is known as the Unix Epoch.

all hail NTP

Just for SAG(1) sake I give you the flood control code for phpBB 2.0.13.

Taken from function submit_post() in the /includes/functions_post.php file. This is GPL code BTW.


(1) - SAG stands for Shits and Giggles

WHORE

:þ

HAHAHAHAHOHOHHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHA!™

That was certainly original!

huh, well I havn't been around for awhile so I didn't know the problem had been voiced.

That's okay. urMUMS the word.

I FOUND A WORKAROUND! with the new quick reply mod you can now make posts as fast as you can type. this however doesnt help editing, but it does help if you a quick browser and go from thread to thread in under "15" seconds.

Oh goody. Let the spamming recommence.

Naw, it warned me yesterday even from the quick reply