[Forum] Intermittent Attachement Problem

[craigl]

I am trying to debug an issue we are having with our attachments. I don't know exactly when it started as it is an intermittent issue. It seems that it started within the last 2 to 4 days and was reported for the first time 2 days ago.

The problem is that some attachments simply do not show up. It does seem to affect older attachments more than newer attachments.

This URL for example

This URL

http://www.performanceboats.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=106885&stc=1&d=1298406769

Shows a test image I uploaded just fine.

This URL

http://www.performanceboats.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=99043&stc=1&d=1291692826

Doesn't work. I checked and the file 99043.attach exists and it is in the database as well.

I haven't figured out where the folder structure info is stored in the database. 99043.attach is in something like attachments/2/3/5/9/99043.attach (not actual folder structure). I don't see where it stores the 2/3/5/9 unless that is some sort of reference to the date.

I disable the plugin/hook system and there was no effect.

Has anyone else had any experience with something like this?

[craigl]

A little more info:

1. Attachment storage type is set to "file system"
2. If I go to the server and search for the 99120 file I find it no problem (that is the one that does NOT show up), if I search for 106885 (the one that does show up) it is simply not there. The one that doesn't exist in the file system is showing and the one that does exist is not showing. I assume that the only way this is possible is if the system is serving from some alternate file system location or database. My guess is database because I just dropped all the way back to / of the server and searched the whole thing for find -name 106885* and came up empty.

How could my settings show that attachments are being served out of the filesystem while a file doesn't seem to actually exist?

[craigl]

So it seems that ALL images that do show up do not exist in the file system and ALL images that do not show up do physically exist in the file system. Can anyone even point me in the right direction of where to start searching in the database? Where would these images be stored in the DB if they were stored there? I ran a search through the whole DB for the image ID's that are showing up and it came back with only normal hits (attachments, threads, posts, cache).

[Steve Machol]

Directory 2/3/5/9 is the place to store attachments for userid 2359.

And this URL does work:

http://www.performanceboats.com/atta...1&d=1291692826

You don't see anything because it's just a 1X1 pixel GIF image.

[craigl]

The problem is that on the server the file is not a 1x1 px image. I downloaded file 99043.attach from the server and changed the extension to .jpg. It is a 93k photo of three people. I sampled a few of the other files too. Keep in mind this problem is affecting roughly 90,000 photos that are all real photos. For some reason the attachments.php file is not seeing them and is seeing photos that do not exist anywhere that I can find them in the file system.

The explanation of the seemingly random folder structure in the attachments directory was very helpful, thank you. Anyone else's input is appreciated.

[craigl]

I should add that this is defiantly not a VBulletin bug, I don't want to in any way imply that. It is absolutely something we screwed up, I am just having a tough time getting a toe hold here to debug from.

[Steve Machol]

Reupload and replace that attachment in whichever post it is in. Do you still have this problem?