osTicket Fatal Error - Unable to connect to the database

ebturner

Hello Folks!

I have osTicket installed and RUNNING. However I keep getting emails stating that there is a fatal error. The error is so vague that its impossible to determine what is wrong.

Hosting is GoDaddy, shared account. Not using email for replies, only the sign in ticket system. Therefore I don't believe any cron jobs are involved, as I didn't do anything but the automated install.

The timing of the emails does not help either, as I got one yesterday. Then two today just 17 minutes apart.

Please keep in mind that the ticket system is connecting to the database with the log in credentials or I would not have tickets and replies.

Any ideas what is causing the "fatal error"?

scottro

Any ideas what is causing the "fatal error"?

Can you give us the full and exact error or is "Fatal Error" all you get, with no details?

Nevermind - noticed the subject line now that Kelli has responded ;)

Kelli

Sounds like someone's trying to access the ticket system (either as a staff member or a client/visitor going to the public side of things), osTicket is unable to connect to the database (based on the subject of your post) and emailing you an error message. That explains the randomness of it.

As to the occasional inability to connect to the database, this is a common problem with shared hosts and isn't really unique to osTicket, it's just that osTicket lets you know about it when it happens.

What happens is that the hosting company will limit the number of simultaneous database connections allowed on the machine and if someone tries to connect while that's maxed out, they get the error. This happens more frequently with servers that have a lot of traffic or machines with a low limit.

If it happens a lot, you may want to mention it to GoDaddy, or consider switching hosts.

ebturner

All I get is an email, or two, maybe 5 a day.

Subject: osTicket Fatal Error

Body: Unable to connect to the database

It does not matter if anyone is signed into the support system or not. I've received email alerts at 4am when nobody is doing any support. I also checked for anyone opening a support ticket at the times of the error. No obvious culprit.

Its shared hosting, but the account is not being hammered with traffic by any means. I have a couple other database applications, which are working fine and are of much higher demand than the sporatic use of the ticket system.

Sure would be nice if the error message would say WHAT is trying to connect to the database so I would have some idea if its a file screwed up on the server, outside access, or the hosting account can't handle the 3-5 tickets we get a day! (seems pretty pathetic that would bog the server down)

scottro

This is the code behind the error message you are receiving:

main.inc.php

#Connect to the DB && get configuration from database

$ferror=null;

if (!db_connect(DBHOST,DBUSER,DBPASS) || !db_select_database(DBNAME)) {

$ferror='Unable to connect to the database';

}

That is the only instance of that error message so this is definitely the code that is triggering the alert. So its either unable to connect to the database or its unable to select the database once connected. As to why, I couldn't tell you. Perhaps there is a hint in mysql logs or maybe apache logs (but I'm not sure if it would show up there).

Also, you could split up this error message into two parts so you know whether its the first issue or the second.

ntozier

There should be a real error in the mysql log. I recommend that you take a look at that and post the error here.