Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Posting Bug Infuriates Haggard Admins
Last night we crossed over 16,777,216 comments in the database. The wise amongst you might note that this number is 2^24, or in MySQLese an unsigned mediumint. Unfortunately, like 5 years ago we changed our primary keys in the comment table to unsigned int (32 bits, or 4.1 billion) but neglected to change the index that handles parents. We're awesome! Fixing is a simple ALTER TABLE statement... but on a table that is 16 million rows long, our system will take 3+ hours to do it, during which time there can be no posting. So today, we're disabling threading and will enable it again later tonight. Sorry for the inconvenience. We shall flog ourselves appropriately. Update: 11/10 12:52 GMT by J : It's fixed.
*Clap clap clap*
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Please do.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
... roll over to be a last post?
Anyone could have made the mistake.. good to keep us all in the loop though :)
And let this be a reminder to the kids - RTFM, twice!
Oh, ...... never mind.
d'oh
welcome our 2 to the power of X overlords.
Last post!
Alright, who's the joker who posted the 16,777,216th comment?
:D
Thanks for breaking slashdot, jerk
LegendMUD
Great work.
Its like y2k, only worse!
As Nelson Muntz would say "HA HA"
If it's too difficult, I can't understand it !
Does this mean that comment id#16777215 has the longest thread in history?
Can anyone actually find it to see - I tried but could only get to 16777217, its likely to be in a journal or just a reply to an older article.
liqbase
As if a thousand geeks all made the same damn "last post!" joke at once. . . . . .
I mean, look how quick we got to 16M comments. 4.1 Gigacomments will come in hardly any time at all. I predict we'll be doing all this again in merely a few weeks!
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I wonder who posted comment #16777216. That person should win some sort of "I borked Slashdot!" award.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
...why wasn't this problem discovered on the dev system in advance?
Given the amount of duplicate articles, why not just let it overflow and we can roll the same stories around again. Saves all the hassle of making submissions.
GSM phones to monitor traffic problems, anyone ?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Taken from http://franksworld.com/blog/archive/2005/01/04/600 .aspx
Chapter 2: Destructional Patterns
2.4 Detonator
The Detonator is extremely common, but often undetected. A common
example is the calculations based on a 2 digit year field. This bomb
is out there, and waiting to explode!
...comment 16777215.
Mmmm... CT, are you sure the parent index was your only problem?
"2^24 comments ought to be enough for anyone" -- CmdrTaco
Some of you are asking which comment it was that got the cid 16,777,216. The answer is that none did. For redundancy, Slashdot is now running multiple-master replication which skips values for auto-increment. Our db-1 assigns odd-numbered primary key IDs, and db-2 assigns even-numbered. Right now writes are going to db-1 so newly created rows will have only odd IDs.
The comment that got 2**24-1 was this one, if anyone cares :)
Sorry about the inconvenience, everyone.
That's cool, I'll just pretend I'm on Digg, with its 1981 Commodore 64 BBS-style threading.
Wait..sorry Commodore fans. I know it had better threading than Digg.
Posting comments is my entire life!! What will I do?? :-(
It's not the destination that matters, but rather the journey.
Haggard admins? Does this mean that the Admins will go buy some meth and get a massage?
Uh, this is a reply to the 8th post down from the top (remember to use this like an array and zero reference). Yes, I'm talking to you, admdrew.
You claim that the 16,777,216th comment would have broke it but I contest that actually the 16,777,217th comment poster would be the culprit. Since it should be able to handle that many comments if it is zero referenced, and it would actually be the one after that one that would break it. You laugh but these kinds of problems plague a lot of coders?
If you don't agree with me, please respond below and reference my comment ID.
My work here is dung.
If I can't post comments??
... should have been enough for anyone.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
No threading? Welcome to Farkdot.
So let me guess...the parent index has been lost forever?
Hopefully it just rolled over, and you can add 2^24 to every value to get the parent links back.
Though I somehow doubt that will work.
:(){
to filter out comments by mod
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
...and the philosophy of zero downtime.
Oh wait, we haven't.
But at least we can use processors several orders of magnitude faster to produce sufficient eye candy to catch what little attention span is left in today's users.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Its a conspiracy, the truth is Natalie Portman poured hot grits on the beowulf /. cluster. In Soviet Russia, all your threads belong to our table altering overlords.
I admit it, it was me.. all your slashdot are belong to me.
thumb?
We just have to use the @dimwit syntax.
Dupe! I TOTALLY posted this story like, last WEEK man! (I laugh, but I betcha someone might post this in seriousness)
USE colorful confetti ON heavily-armed clown
And this is why you should not have arbitrary limits in your programs, ladies and gentlemen. Not even limits on the values your numbers can represent - unless you have _proven_ that no values outside the representable range will ever occur.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Flogging and Haggard in the same sentence? If we can get "crystal meth" in, we'll hit the trifecta!
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
I used to work at Comair. Remember, that airline that stranded about 10,000 people in the airport a couple of Christmases ago? Same deal. Program was capable of handling only a certain number of changes. Hopefully your president won't have to resign.
Did anyone else read the headline and think that's what it was about?
So is the bug still in the CVS revision of Slash, or was it fixed 5 years ago and Slashdot never applied the patch?
Its not a problem with counting, its the fact he used the lower case c for comments.
16777216 comments = 16 million rows.
16777216 Comments = nearly 17million rows.
Also, he could have used mibicomments to get the proper units and would have totally avoided this confusion.
liqbase
Give a 2^0-year Slashdot subscription to the guy who hit the limit and one to the the first non-administrator guy who successfully posted after the fix.
If you can find the first guy who COULDN'T reply due to the limit, give him one too. He deserves something for his trouble.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Actually, comment 16,777,217 couldn't break it, because that comment's parent cid could have only been 16,777,215. Up until then, there wouldn't have been an overflow value put into the db.
There's no telling which comment it is, because (16,777,217 + 2n) might not have been a reply, meaning it would come up correctly.
:(){
Suddenly Slashdot seems more like Fark.com.
Does this mean that Slashdot is going to denegrate into Digg now?
My blog
I'd like to extend a big thanks for letting us know, and also for explaining how the problem arose in the first place.
(I'm not smart enough to jump into slashcode and feel at home there, so its pretty interesting to see the kinda stuff you people have to face every now and then)
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
Reply to comment number 16786251:
...but it's probably not zero-referenced. Typically, ids in SQL start at 1.
``You claim that the 16,777,216th comment would have broke it but I contest that actually the 16,777,217th comment poster would be the culprit. Since it should be able to handle that many comments if it is zero referenced''
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
congrats you broke slashdot
9 5&cid=16777217
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2055
I certainly admit I wasn't thinking 0-based when I wrote that. The question is, though, should we blame the person who wrote the last valid comment (therefore ruining the fun for the rest of us), or whoever wrote the first broken comment?
Also, is everyone going to add the obligatory 'parent' link on their posts today?
[ Parent ] - [ Reply to this ]
LegendMUD
Any thoughts on making the DB publicly accessable other than through teh Dot? Not sure what I'd do with all that data, but I'm sure these's a grad student somewhere who'd love the opportunity...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I thought some Slashdot bug had taken down an evangelical website or something.....duh.
would a story like this actually be posted. And with such hilarity. But really, it seems many times we computer people give us more room for future expansions and inevitably end up hitting it (y2k 'bug', this, 128K should be enough for everybody, that kinda thing). Yes i know, we hit limits eventually. But, you would think that we'd prepare better for this and increase beforehand. (the admins did as mentioned, just missed the other part) Or are we lazy? Or all have A.D.D.? Perhaps we just do this "OOhh...a new piece of hardware/software/whatever. Um....yeah, we can wait to raise that limit."
(http://slashdot.org/~eldavojohn/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 04, @01:06PM) Uh, this is a reply to the 8th post down from the top (remember to use this like an array and zero reference). Yes, I'm talking to you, admdrew. You claim that the 16,777,216th comment would have broke it but I contest that actually the 16,777,217th comment poster would be the culprit. Since it should be able to handle that many comments if it is zero referenced, and it would actually be the one after that one that would break it. You laugh but these kinds of problems plague a lot of coders? If you don't agree with me, please respond below and reference my comment ID.
Yes, but you forgot to start counting with 0
Little Brother, watching the watchers
You seem to be thinking like I was when I first read about this problem. but I think I have a better way of addressing who we are replying to http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205731&cid=167 86251 hyperlinks are easier to follow than trying to count as the number of comments rise.
Brillant!
I always wondered where Paula Bean ended up...
Why not delete all the posts that have the words: insensitive clod, I for one welcome our [a-z]+ overlords, Soviet Russia, Libraries of Congress, ...profit!, frist psot, why is this on slashdot, dupe, or have any mention of porn.
You'll free up 2^24 - 2^15 of the comment IDs at least...
Mod parent down, funny my ass. It's obviously flamebait
The unexamined life is not worth living
Uhhhh who's your daddy?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Does this mean that all replies to comments after the 2^24-1th one were attached to much much older comments instead? Can anyone find one and see?
Perhaps some sql command that adds 2^24 to a comment's parent entry if the comment's own id is >2^24 and it's parent is less than 10,000?
Slashdot being a news (for nerds) site, I would expect that the usage patterns are such that a huge majority of the content accessed by users is very recent -- say, perhaps, 90% of the database hits are for stories and comments that were posted in the last week.
So why, pray, is this usage pattern not accounted for in the database design?
Mod parent ... wait..
LOST Post!
I thought you guys were like Gods or something. Maybe I should start praying to someone else instead now?
http://slashdot.org/~themusicgod1/journal/137880 ...ok, so it was obvious...
Let the flamewars begin...
Web Sig: Eddy Currents
So I got mod points instead of being able to post....
I'm sorry to inform you, but Digg has nested posting for a while now.
Take all the time you need, I'm more than willing to refrain from posting durin.... Oh shit!
At least nobody can feed the trolls now!
If Slashdot released the Slashcode more frequently, with more/better comments/docs, and encouraged some of the many of us who complain about bugs/features to help the project, then it's more likely that someone would have debugged this bug earlier.
Open source - it's not just a buzzword, it's a way of life.
--
make install -not war
Is how quick you figured out what the problem was. If this were some huge corporate entity, the PHBs would still be running around trying to set up meetings upon meetings...I think the answer to all technical problems is smart people with little to no be bureaucracy.
You creep up to the window and, in the soft, muted lights, you see a tall woman with long, blond hair. She sits before a mirror and brushes her hair, then stands and walks over to the sunken tub off to her left. She kneels and her blue, silken robe drops to the floor. She turns the water on and steam slowly fills the air.
You watch in fascination as she reaches down into the tub, whirls, and points an Uzi in your direction. "Stop reading paragraphs you're not supposed to read, creeps." She sighs deeply. "Next time I'm going to demand they put me in a Bard's Tale game, this Wasteland duty is dangerous."
And this is why you should not have arbitrary limits in your programs, ladies and gentlemen. Not even limits on the values your numbers can represent
Now this is a real Slashdotter! This guy knows how to build an infinite computer!
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
... and by the way, you SUCK.
LMAO, my vword: "cheeks"
We're awesome!
No, "Taco", you're just stupid. But we already knew that.
I had a hard time imagining how the admins of Ted Haggard's site could be miffed at Slashdot.
I also didn't recollect Slashdot discussing our favorite non-homosexual, non-meth-using ex-pastor recently...
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Why on earth does MySQL have a 24 bit integer datatype? On what platform does it even remotely make sense to use that in the first place? It's going to get cast to 32 bits for any arithmetic operations anyway, and on most platforms today alignment requirements are going to pad the extra byte in memory and disk, so you're not even saving any space. Why even give someone the option over choosing between 16 bit and 32 bit integers?
This
poot_rootbeer asks why all the comments are in one table, when the data access pattern is such that 90% of our hits are on only the most recent entries in that table.
The answer is that we used to do it this way but it's a huge pain. In 2000 we converted from having two tables for 'stories', recent and archived, and merged them together. The performance hit was not big, and it made the code so much simpler it was a no-brainer.
It's the database's job to cache properly whether we split the table or not, and the database does that just fine. The only performance problem could be when there is a rush of inserts, or updates to the same sets of rows, spanning both newer and older portions of the table, and that just doesn't happen.
If we did want to do this we wouldn't split the tables manually; the code complexity is too high a price to pay. In MySQL 5.0 we would use a MERGE engine, which has issues of its own but would involve smaller changes to our code. That's still not worth it for us. What we're probably going to do is wait for MySQL 5.1 to get out of beta and then do some performance testing on tables partitioned by date and see if that gains us anything. For example, a SELECT on our comments table could be limited with a WHERE clause to only retrieve rows with a date >= the discussion object's date, which for 90% of our queries MySQL 5.1 could optimize to only look at the most recent partition. If the gains turn out to be significant, then since partitioning involves very limited code changes, we'll probably do that. Generally speaking, though, database performance is not a problem for us. So far our main bottlenecks have been CPU and RAM on the webheads. As long as we don't do anything stupid our database performance has been fine, though, as today proves, we are quite capable of being stupid.
[ Parent ]
16,777,216 comments in the database. The wise amongst you might note that this number is 2^24 Only would a slashdotter look at that number and think OH thats 2^24 :D
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
....yet another non-existent comment numbered 16777215. And another one. And another one.
Normally, accessing a non-existent comment gets you either the "nothing to see here" message or the "can't find that comment in this discussion" message. Where are the ghost comments coming from?
Any thoughts on making the DB publicly accessable other than through teh Dot? Not sure what I'd do with all that data, but I'm sure these's a grad student somewhere who'd love the opportunity...
/. that people didn't plan on having released to the internet at large. Passwords, for example (even if they're stored only as hashes, getting the whole DB would make it feasible to crack them); real email addresses, real names...I assume that the subscription process doesn't involve actually storing credit card information in the DB (I don't know; I've only used PayPal), but that might be another concern.
Not just grad students; as a DBA by profession, I'd love a crack at the DB. If nothing else, it would give me a great place to play around with MySQL. Not to mention the ability to maybe extract some interesting user-level statistics.
Of course, the odds of this happening are pretty damn low - there'd have to be an awful lot of work and review done to scrub the DB of information that is entrusted to
Just the email addresses would be a huge deal - can you imagine the market value of such a targeted list of addresses?
In short, it would be fantastically cool for them to release the DB, but it would be a lot of work on their part for no particular return. Not to mention that if they released it once, they'd no doubt be pestered to keep releasing periodic updates...then there's the bandwidth issues...and, even, the potential copyright issues (/. doesn't own the copyright on posted comments, the poster does)...then the copyright issues for stuff they do own; releasing the DB would make it trivial for a bad actor to post a mirrored slash. A little bit of domain typosquatting and some ad deals, and you could be talking about real money.
If I were them, there's no way in hell I'd even think about doing it.
But it would be cool.
Parent
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
>>16786443
The question is, though, should we blame the person who wrote the last valid comment (therefore ruining the fun for the rest of us), or whoever wrote the first broken comment?
The issue is that comments after 2^24 can't be replied to since their ID won't fit into the "parent" field. So the real culprit is the guy who wrote the first post that nobody could reply to.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I disagree with your post and I think you are a jackass.
It is up to the various parents to determine which comment I am replying too.
this is what you get for letting the trolltalk crapflooder run free
Would not have happened if Slashdot used PostgreSQL.
Let the flamewars begin...
Unthreaded flame wars are much less enjoyable.
I thought something with the Slashdot web code didn't agree with some part of my newly installed Firefox 2.0. I was looking at a comment and wanted to see the parent. When I clicked it, I got a blank comment. Now I see this story and that explains it.
/.ed /." t-shirt courtesy of Slashdot. Or would that be 16,777,215 and 16,777,216? Whichever. Do it!
Comment #16,777,216 should definitely get a free "Last Post" t-shirt courtesy of Slashdot and Comment #16,777,217 should definitely get a free "I
But why is the rum gone?
...am aiming for post # 33554432 (2^25)
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
The number 2^24 is of interest to digital computer artists, as that is the number of unique colors combined in the commonly implemented "True Color" RGB8 space. That color space is looking pretty limiting in some respects, but that is truly a lot of unique colors when you think about it. A 16 megapixel image does not need to repeat any color used.
If all slashdot posts from the history of Slashdot were sorted into color bins,Once that were done, people could simply post their replies as a reference to existing posts. "Hey, #938D3A to you, buddy!" "Know what I think of that? #F2C2A9!"
[
Ah, MySQL. Where trying to insert a row with a column value larger than the column can actually store results in MySQL clipping it to the max value.
Fortunately, as of MySQL 5, you can fix this problem.
So, yes, early versions of MySQL had a brain-dead default SQL mode that simply "corrected" invalid column values, but MySQL 5 fixes this.
Now if only they would add column constraints...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
oversight!
The lengths that Slashdot goes to to keep us entertained are much appreciated!
Nothing is obscure on SlashFark.
/Even if we wish it were
probably to reduce the size of the index, if 2^24 index values is deemed to be enough then why make those index pages any bigger than they need to be, the shorter the indexed value then the more indexes you pull back with a single IO operation and the faster you can search the index I believe.
--
One day, Cmdr Taco is designing his database, and he sits down at a table with three integers on it. First, he tries the baby bear's integer, but exclaims "2 meager bytes is way too small for my appetite."
Next, he tries Papa bear's integer, but proclaims "4 bytes is way too big for my little site, I'd just end up wasting so much."
Finally, he tries Mama bear's integer, and extols "3 bytes is just right," not noticing it was really the same as Papa Bear's bowl in disquise.
This
Now had they just used a real database, this wouldn't be an issue.
:)
MySQL for them, three hours for us.
Hmm... one thing though, this flat mode reminds me of the good old days.
Have you read my journal today?
Population approximately 16,777,216 comments ... all Borg.
erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
Get your mod points ready, this is off topic, but considering the current state of discussion anyway, I don't feel so bad about it.
/. admins won't (and shouldn't) consider releasing a copy of the /. DB to the public, something occurred to me.
/. are owned by the poster, according to that one line that shows up on all the comment pages (specifically, "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.") At the same time, though, /. doesn't provide a method for having comments you've made removed from the DB.
/. from displaying them in future? Or is there some kind of implicit license in posting on /.? Did I clicksign an agreement covering this when I joined (this was getting on towards a decade ago, so I really don't remember the joining process at all)?
Regardless, while writing this post regarding why the
Comments on
If I own the copyright on the comments I've made, shouldn't I be able to rescind publication rights on them, and prevent
Or are publication rights, once granted, irrevocable?
Of course, I suppose asking questions when there's no way for people to hit reply is a specific form of vague insanity...still, I'm curious.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
and you STILL cannot stop the trolltalk crapflood...
LOAL!
I'd really like to see it. I bet it goes something like, "what's this stupid web thingy anyway? I bet it'll never make it to version 2.0..."
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
You can flog the dolphin while you are waiting on the reindexing. So get yer hands back to the keyboard til that job is running.
Carry on.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
On a side note, I noticed the /. hit counter (in the stats) recently rolled over 2^32 hits with no problem (i.e. more than 4294967296).
Look Mom Slashdot's comments system sucks just like Digg's :-)
No Ramen and no Jolt!
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
...why all my witty and charming replies got eaten and never showed up in public. Man, each of those might have been glorious "+5, godlike" slashdot, you destroyed my life!
Er...nevermind...
Hey, at least I get to claim now that we have more data than slashdot! Woo! Nothing like large, delicious MySQL databases. Mmm, Mmm good.
Jay | http://oldos.org
A quick look at older articles shows that they're still threaded. Will this story be threaded again once threading is enabled or is it doomed to be flat forever?
/me is not a programmer of any sort
Some time back, our ClearCase record database hit the exact same limit of 2^24. Set us up for a schema 54 upgrade. It was very challenging. I feel your pain, CmdrTaco.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
My eyebrows are going to be bushy!
This
I've never been quick enough to get a 1st Post. ;-)
Ten points for honesty!
At least they didn’t try to make bullshit excuses. I respect them for being up front about the real nature of the issue.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
And as you can't reply, I'll do it for you: "Soon to be closed down by Sony"
On a related note, (which I haven't tested yet,) could it be that old versions of Opera with the 15-16 hole will be able to render Discussion2 again? (Opera 9.02 handles it already, BTW.)
You need a Data Administrator, who would have told you not to use unsigned because it is non-standard -- and to use PostgreSQL because it has DOMAINs.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Welcome to the world of tommorow!
As if a thousand geeks all made the same damn "last post!" joke at once. . . . . .
I would suggest we make a thread for just such jokes but....
Monstar L
I recently ran into this problem with Mysql 5.0.x -- I had to alter a few columns to increase a char(2) to char(20) on a table with 10+ M records.
I too run multi-master replication -- but only one server is primary at any one point in time.
To get around this problem, I made the change on one of the standby servers, failed over the web application to that server and then implemented the change on the previously live server.
Little Brother: /Hey, this whole no threading thing reminds me of something.
//Obscure?
I don't see anyone else using the FARK posting format, so, apparently yes.
/slashie
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
All Your Posts Are Belong To Us
As your punishment, you should write some kind of data-mining algorithm that starts from the point you disabled threading and try to construct intelligent threads based on the subject and the body of comments...
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Now if we could only get politicians to be this forthright and transparent!
Anonymous Coward for president!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I guess this is another thing to add to the MySQL gotchas page. Of course, in a decent database engine, like PostgreSQL, if you alter a column data type then the indexes are updated to reflect this.
...LART
Who said that? RMS? Linus? Data? HAL?
There's a work around to the flat structure :
1. Select the post you want to reply to.
2. Click on it's CID (on the right side of the post header. Don't confuse it with the UID).
3. The post appears alone on it's own webpage.
4. Click on the reply button.
5. Now you're replying again in a tree-like fashon.
6. ???
7. Profit ! (Or infuriate the administrator who actually had a good reason to temporary force a flat style),
And here's a link on my opinion about flat-structured forum !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I have a Flog file here that I would be happy to send to you. However, due to regulations, etc. that abound with regards to the material tghat can be transmitted via the internet, I'll have to use an antiquated modem transmission.
Let me know when you are ready, then I'll Kermit the Flog.
[insert groan here]
Don't worry about it, CT. We'll forgive you this time. *hugs*
Why isn't the table archived?
Nothing costs nothing
Little Brother: /Hey, this whole no threading thing reminds me of something.
//Obscure?
/slashie
I don't see anyone else using the FARK posting format, so, apparently yes.
STOP THAT FARK SHIT RIGHT NOW. That's the gayest thing EVER. Fark is a cesspool of computer-illiterate userbase of fat goths, fat sports fans, and fat suburbanite soccer moms (and other types of fat Americans) who think "omg lolololol Drew drinks beer lolololol your dog wants steak lol no cure for cancer hur hur hur hur hur" is funny or witty. "Oh ha ha we namedrop Wil Wheaton and Christopher Walken because it's ironic, just like the bumper-sticker slogan on my Hot Topic t-shirt." I swear to god and don't get me started on their mediocre photoshop contests. No, no your non-photoshop doesn't make it funny just because you put the word "subtle?" below it, gtfo faggots. Fark SUCKS.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
With all teh funnae posts about it, let me be the first one to ask: why were you using 3-byte integers to begin with? Why would anybody anywhere ever use these for any reason at all? What advantage to these have? Why was this table laid out like this? This doesn't make sense to me at all. Were you really imagining that shaving a byte off each post was going to save you DB space? I can't quite believe that. But than what exactly would be the motivation for using such an odd integer size?
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
I know how you feel slashdot, why in the hell does mysql do that, why catn it use 32bit numbers.........
...he started it.
(since /. had to go offline for THREE HOURS)
To paraphrase a scene from Disney's Hercules:
"'Hey Cowboy Neal, nice job on those tables. Ya missed a spot'"
Somebody set up Slashdot the 16,777,216th comment.
I don't get it.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
2^24, or in MySQLese an unsigned mediumint
After that final Taco, you really do need a bigmint.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Oh wait, there ARE no parents.
MOD TROLL DOWN!
Oh, wait...nevermind.
Way to go! This will put the system to the test!
[%] Cingular Ringtones
I'm not sure if anyone will see my poor little comment stranded at the bottom of this well of posts, but I have nothing else to do so I'll post it anyway.
It's nice to see a site posting reasons for breakages from time to time. I'm sick of seeing errors like "Database error, sorry for the inconvenience". Database error? Should I try again? Should I try again later? How long will it take to fix? Did someone screw up somewhere, or did some of your hardware explode?
Here, we get "Heh, we forgot to twiddle with the database a while ago. Silly us. It should take a few hours to fix, so come back here then ok?". Very refreshing, or something like that.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
in a way, jamie, it's rumsfeld's fault?
Me too!
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Does comment #1 exist? /. seems to have had a different URL pattern then..(Date/Time!!)0
The farthest I could get to was,
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/01/08/11330
Wincopy
The post that broke it is on our good friend Rumsfeld. About 1/2 way into things, in fact. Did Slashdot die because of more poor Rumsfeld planning, failing to plan for the entire thread, but only the first few years^H^H^H posts?
Does this mean we can now have a threadless jihad? Who's going to be the first to IED Taco?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
you stink.
...yeah that's what I thought.
What have you got to say about that??
So the cops knew that internal affairs were setting them up?
So many comments modded as funny in a post that makes absolutely no fucking sense to me what so ever
God Be Gone
Welcome to the /. karma-fest!
Whether it's Pity or Witty, there is only ModUp from here!
Did a test with the new format of no replys and what do you know the pages actually render more consistantly (based on format and speed) in more browsers now.
God I love being QA tester.
Man I hate that stupid database. A couple of hours just to change a 16 million item table. Pffft, what a bunch of crap. 16 million rows is nothing in database terms.
I hate that MythTV uses it, the damn thing chugs along grinding away with only a couple thousand rows. It makes MythTV suck because the performance is so crappy when you have only a couple hundred programs recorded.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Quote - "We shall flog ourselves appropriately." Could you please film this? I'd like to see that :P
Who let the job's out?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205549&cid=167 77215d =16777215
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205709&ci
Both are modded up +4 Interesting, but the second link goes to a blank post...
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Anti-Dupe System.
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
Quick everybody! Let's find the next limit! (Do your part to help debug ;))
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
At least this isn't a mission critical system or anything otherwise there will be talks of how stupid slash dot is to hire the lowest bidder.
At least it's proof that not everyone is perfect. Except George Lucas, even though he made Howard the duck... or maybe no one is perfect.
I slept through this, so I don't know: Did they post amusing music to celebrate their downtime?
[o]_O
Since only the odd numbers are used to table is really closer to 8 million lines long.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
I thought it was Story ID, but Story ID #1 is from 06-25-01.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1
Parent
Suffice to say, however, that this is a clear case of the database doing exactly what you asked for, and Slashdot has paid the price for asking for something nonsensical (hey, we've all done something similar).
PS: Note that the ALTER TABLE docs on the PostgreSQL site do seem to imply that something as extensive as the type of a foreign key column would not be updated, only indexes and "simple table constraints involving the column."
PPS: Tried this in MySQL 5.0, and it does not complain about the alter table creating a mismatched foreign key type, which is either a bug or a problematic feature that should probably be addressed if it hasn't already in 5.1.
PPPS: Of course, no one will ever see this comment, given the lack of threading
Coming to a www.dailywtf.com near you *grin*
RFC2119
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
3 hours to change a table with 16 million rows? Hmm.
I think my 486 could handle that in that time frame. If not, I'm positive my K6-2/450 could.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Ok. First WHO IS THE DAMN MORON THAT USES mediumint as Identity!?
Wtf! One good thing is aways in all your tables aways having id as int/bigint !
What the loser tried doing with mediumid? save hd space?! fuck
Ok. Ok. I got too ungry.
I was messing with my comment settings and came back to see it all messed up. Being too lazy to change it back I left it for a few hours, then I saw someone in an article complaining that the threading was broken.
First reaction: "Oh shiiii..."
Slashdot is getting slashdotted!
Wow, looks like a phpBB in here. Does that mean I have to post even more retardedly than normal?
We slashdotted Slashdot!
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
This is an entry in a database, located somewhere under a white house.
Disable comment altogether, start duping 24/7, and never get flamed for it. :-) :-) Thanks for the honesty. Tagged appropriately, I see...
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
I may be behind the curve here, but I find it interesting that Slashdot even has a no-threading mode... or was this a quick hack job?
Wouldn't this have been the better way: /. Perl crack probably can do this in 5 minutes)
... Then again, if someone didn't do his homework and slashcode is a messy hack, this could be troublesome.
1) Inmediate hack-patch at runtime: Add column or extra 1:1 table, whichevers faster,
2) add super-quick hack that adds a new index beyond 2^24. (some
3) Add third column, migrate/merge/rebuild new index at runtime
4) Switch to new index
5) remove old code and columns 1&2 after correct functionality is confirmed
Most People probably wouldn't even have noticed.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It was ME!
Agreed on the points for the reindexing, but the database has been created to specification.
As they said, its an oversight after converting years ago.
A few years ago I had to do a similar fix on the behemoth I inherited which used 16 bit index keys.
I personally think mysql handles slash really nicely and coupled with the open source foundations it stands on allows a lot more people to get systems up and running, moving to a proprietary database (even a free one) would exclude a lot of people from running their own site with slashcode.
Maybe there are enough database developers out there today who have been effected by this who could step up to the plate and fix mysql itself so it does have the required features. There are certainly enough geeks in here.
[ Parent ]
liqbase
Several people have made comments about posting being disabled for a while, clearly based on this statement in CmdrTaco's writeup: ... our system will take 3+ hours to do it, during which time there can be no posting.
But posting was never disabled! Only replying was disabled. (And still remains disabled, 7+ hours later.) Thus he shouldn't be flogged for downtime!
Let's try to be fair here. Stay your whips. Calm your tempers. Take a deep breath. Gather some strength.
And now flog him for disinformation instead!
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
At bewildering times like this I, personally, reflect back to comment #10,000,000.
(And the rest)
qntm.org
Mod parent up!
Whoo, signature!
DesireCampbell.com
Turn on threaded replies and take a bow!
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
I'd like to reply to that guy who said that thing about welcoming the Overloads and Soviet Russia and all that. I think that comment was spot on. Spot on. If anyone agrees with me, please... start a new thread.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
OMG, it's the dreaded Y2K*8388.608 bug!
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
you would be home by now...
Oh, I see, we can still post just no convoluted threads that degenerate into personal attacks.
Hey! Why don't you leave it broken and call it a feature!
Once Slashdot threading is fixed, we need to celebrate somehow.
So, on the first story posted after 16:00 GMT tomorrow, we should establish the longest comment thread in Slashdot history!
This will show our great appreciation for all that the Slashdot crew has done for us. (Or for the more trollish among you who have an unreasonable grudge against the editors, you may consider it an attempt to test the limits of Slashcode.)
What makes you think they were being honest?
"Something is zorked up with the database!"
"What seems to be the problem?"
"How the fsck should I know? But we've got to post something so they won't know we're clueless."
"Okay, but what?"
"Some posters are guessing we ran out of indexes at message 10^24. We can claim we used 24 bit indexes."
"24 bit indexes, that's the dumbest thing I've heard all day."
"Fine you come up with a better excuse."
"Okay, just post it and get back to figuring out what really went wrong."
Honesty is indistinguishable from a believable lie.
Dean
Parent
Are we to understand that Slashdot has been Slashdotted?
Alas, poor Slashdot!
I knew it, CmdrTaco. A website of infinite jest, of most excellent facny. It hath borne my posts on its page a thousand times. And now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
Bruce
Slashdot broken: feels like the times when a thunderstorm used to hit my home and everything will stop working(including all electrical appliances). Then everyone will drop whatever they were doing, light a fire in the covered verandah and sit around it sipping tea/coffee and swapping stories !
:)
Damn I miss those days now
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
become a first post?
I've being looking for a new signature for months. Thanks a lot!
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
Clearly not. Look right below this thread.
You knew what it was damned near immediately.
And fixed 16 million comments - in 3 hours?
This just goes to show you the power of knowing what you are doing.
Stuff like this impresses the hell out of me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Yes it would.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.