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Slashdot Posting Bug Infuriates Haggard Admins

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-is-never-good dept.

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.

6 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. They should have used PostgreSQL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Subject says it all. PG does a much better job giving you so much rope to hang yourself with.

  2. Would PostgreSQL be faster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Would PostgreSQL have performed this operation any faster than MySQL?

  3. Can't count. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll


    > Last night we crossed over 16,777,216 comments [snip] > .. but on a table that is 16 million rows long

    That's nearer 17 million YTC

  4. That's what you get... by NineNine · · Score: -1, Troll

    ... for using MySQL. I hate to say it, but it's the truth. Remember kids: if MS Access can't handle what you're doing, MySQL probably can't handle it, either. I know that at least Oracle can re-index on the fly. Probably MS SQL, DB2, and even PostgreSQL, too.

  5. Taco is an illiterate blowjob merchant by WisC · · Score: -1, Troll

    Hey taco, the slashdot diet of crack and male cum must really be getting to you, it is spelt haggered you dumb illiterate fuck. How can you claim to be news for nerds when you can't even spell properly, spit out that dick and use spell check you lazy fuck. Oh hang on it is spelt right, oh well the above still applies anyway

  6. What's impressive by FirmWarez · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.