Deleting Error Logs from cPanel

[Lindsay D]

Re: Deleting Error Logs from C Panel

So, it seems that when I look at errors on the homepage of my C Panel, under Errors, Error Logs - these are server errors and I don't really need to worry about them. I would presume my host would be responsible for purging these regularly?

The real problem then is the fact that there is this error_log file under public_html/blog. This is baffling me, that seems a strange place to have an error log, especially one which is surging up to 10 gigs in a matter of hours. I certainly didn't put it there, and I am the only person other than my host who has access to my files. Hmm.

 

[quietFinn]

Re: Deleting Error Logs from C Panel

So, it seems that when I look at errors on the homepage of my C Panel, under Errors, Error Logs - these are server errors and I don't really need to worry about them. I would presume my host would be responsible for purging these regularly?

Those errors are caused by your website, so you should try to fix the errors when possible. Most of the time they are just those "File does not exist" errors and they are not so serious.

The real problem then is the fact that there is this error_log file under public_html/blog. This is baffling me, that seems a strange place to have an error log, especially one which is surging up to 10 gigs in a matter of hours. I certainly didn't put it there, and I am the only person other than my host who has access to my files. Hmm.

error_log is PHP's error file, and it's placed in the directory where PHP is executed.

If there is some kind of misconfiguration in your code (or in PHP) it can generate huge amount of error messages.
It's possible something has changed in the server (for example PHP upgrade) and your code is not compatible any more.

 

[Lindsay D]

Thank you, that sounds entirely possible quietFinn - I certainly haven't changed anything in my file structure or code, so I remain baffled about the error log surges. My hosts haven't commented, other than to tell me to find the problem and correct it, which I don't seem to be able to. It's turning into a daily nightmare. If they do regular PHP upgrades that maybe the next one will correct the problem, I can but hope. The current errors I've started to get today in the public_html/blog/error_log are:

[09-Dec-2013 00:47:01] PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function tags() on a non-object in /home/linds/public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/prophoto4/classes/seo.php on line 143

I'm getting totally different errors every day.

 

[Nick57]

Hi Lindsay,

You do need to put this favicon.ico * file in each of your folders, as it will help to bring your log file down.
Any error how small it looks like, you should fix, any missing file you need to check why it is missing and put it back from a backup.

The other issue which you have is that your blog website is a Wordpress website, and this is using some plug-ins, for example, the seo plug-in. all you need to do is make sure you have updated Wordpress to latest version, then make sure you update all your plug-ins as well! The golden rule, if you don't use it, remove it!

* favicon.ico is a small image of 32x32pixels which will show in the url bar when you browse to your website! Many put a company logo [small version] or Trademark there.

As mentioned before keep downloading the file, delete it and fix, keep repeating this process.

In mean time you have to find out if your host has updated the server PHP version, as a small update from PHP 5.2/5.3 to 5.4 will break a lot if you use older software.

 

[Lindsay D]

Hi Nick, yes, I always make sure I have the latest up-to-date versions of Wordpress and all of my plug-ins. In fact my site is set up to automatically alert me as soon as a new version of anything is released, and I can do automatic updates as well. I do the same with my themes.

As far as the error log errors go, I don't have the expertise to understand what they actually refer to and consequently I can't always remedy them - I think I have found an expert who can help me if I can't sort this out for myself.

I can ask my host if they have updated the PHP part on their server, although I am not sure I will get a detailed enough response. They host thousands of photographers so I'm curious to know if others are having the same problems, but an Internet search hasn't revealed anything unfortunately.

Thank you again to everybody for the assistance, it really is appreciated. It's also helping me to learn a bit more about how these things work.

A couple of the most recent errors from the public_html/blog/error_log:

[09-Dec-2013 15:41:19] WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query UPDATE wp_blc_links SET url = 'http://lindsaydobsonphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sheffield-Park-241113-WEB-1350.jpg', first_failure = '0000-00-00 00:00:00', last_check = '2013-12-06 15:39:26', last_success = '2013-12-06 15:39:26', last_check_attempt = '2013-12-09 15:41:19', check_count = 1, final_url = 'http://lindsaydobsonphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sheffield-Park-241113-WEB-1350.jpg', redirect_count = 0, log = '=== HTTP code : 200 ===\n\nHTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nDate: Fri, 06 Dec 2013 15:39:26 GMT\r\nServer: Apache/2.2.24 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.24 OpenSSL/1.0.0-fips mod_bwlimited/1.4\r\nLast-Modified: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 17:50:41 GMT\r\nETag: \"3dc321-bd32f-4ebefe2c33e40\"\r\nAccept-Ranges: bytes\r\nContent-Length: 774959\r\nContent-Type: image/jpeg\r\n\r\n\nLink is valid.', http_code = 200, request_duration = 0.001389, timeout = 0, result_hash = '200|0|0|160b3577ccf9f82a0a0f59ad24017dca', broken = 0, false_positive = 0, may_recheck = 1, being_checked = 1, status_text = '', status_code = '', dismissed = 0 WHERE link_id=6761 made by do_action_ref_array, call_user_func_array, wsBrokenLinkChecker->cron_check_links, wsBrokenLinkChecker->work, blcLink->check, blcLink->save
[09-Dec-2013 15:41:20] WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query UPDATE wp_blc_links SET url = 'http://lindsaydobsonphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sheffield-Park-241113-WEB-1350.jpg', first_failure = '0000-00-00 00:00:00', last_check = '2013-12-09 15:41:19', last_success = '2013-12-09 15:41:19', last_check_attempt = '2013-12-09 15:41:19', check_count = 0, final_url = 'http://lindsaydobsonphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sheffield-Park-241113-WEB-1350.jpg', redirect_count = 0, log = '=== HTTP code : 200 ===\n\nHTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nDate: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 15:41:19 GMT\r\nServer: Apache/2.2.24 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.24 OpenSSL/1.0.0-fips mod_bwlimited/1.4\r\nLast-Modified: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 17:50:41 GMT\r\nETag: \"3dc321-bd32f-4ebefe2c33e40\"\r\nAccept-Ranges: bytes\r\nContent-Length: 774959\r\nContent-Type: image/jpeg\r\n\r\n\nLink is valid.', http_code = 200, request_duration = 0.001586, timeout = 0, result_hash = '200|0|0|160b3577ccf9f82a0a0f59ad24017dca', broken = 0, false_positive = 0, may_recheck = 1, being_checked = 0, status_text = '', status_code = '', dismissed = 0 WHERE link_id=6761 made by do_action_ref_array, call_user_func_array, wsBrokenLinkChecker->cron_check_links, wsBrokenLinkChecker->work, blcLink->check, blcLink->save
[09-Dec-2013 15:41:20] WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query SELECT links.*


The problem is that the errors keep changing (I don't even know if this is a PHP error), I can't keep up with them. Interestingly the error above seems to relate to a plug-in I installed two days ago to help me find and fix broken links on my website - it appears to work quite well, so I'm not sure why it's giving these errors.

 

[Lindsay D]

I am intrigued by the fact these errors are currently affecting only my main Blog. What I mean is, my domain /http://www.lindsaydobsonphotography.com consists of two very similar Wordpress blogs, one is my main Blog and the other one is dedicated to Pet and animal photography, so the domain is like this:

/http://www.lindsaydobsonphotography.com/blog
/http://www.lindsaydobsonphotography.com/pets

The Pet blog (also Wordpress) has its own error log of just 200Kb which contains the same error from June 2013 to December 2013, and nothing before that. This error log has never grown, or surged.

So I wonder why the problem is confined to the general Blog and the Pet blog is unaffected, given they are both Wordpress. Does this mean that it cannot be down to a new version of PHP being uploaded by the host? If so, I'm wondering if it would have affected both of my Wordpress blogs, being that they occupied the same piece of web space.

 

[Nick57]

It depends if both Wordpress website are installed at same time and both have same version and same plug-ins, then yes, that's weird.
Then it can't be a php update, so you need to find out from both what version is used. Perhaps it is just one plug-in giving you all this trouble.

 

[Lindsay D]

Thank you Nick, all of this is helping me to try and narrow down the problem. The Pets Wordpress site was installed about 18 months after the main Wordpress Blog, so that would be about 3 years ago. The plug-ins are all the same except for about two of them. The versions of Wordpress are the same, because I always make sure that everything is up-to-date on both areas, likewise plugins and themes etc.

As you suggest, I may have to try a process of elimination with the plug-ins, but they've always been fine, and only one of them was installed this year (just a couple of days ago).