Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted...

[Grover]

Hi,

One of my members says that she get's the following error when she tries to post a new thread on my forum:

Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 83 bytes) in /home/mycompany.nl/public_html/site/forum/includes/functions_search.php on line 196

When she replies on an existing post/thread, then everything is ok.

She is the only one reporting this problem, and me and my staff do not experience any problems whatsoever on the forum. You would assume it has something to do with my virtual server, but then why is she the ONLY one (apparently) with this problem?

Any tips for me?

[Dilly]

Is she trying to post something very large?

[Grover]

I guess not, because she says that when see replies to an existing topic, everything is fine. She only get's it when posting a new thread : I don't think it has anything to do with the contents of her post.

No-one else has these problems, so how can this be a server-issue (I did a search for this error here on vbulletin.com and errors like these apparently always point to a server-issue) if she is the only one experiencing it?

My forum just runs fine for everybody else.

[Grover]

If found this advice from Steve:

Your PHP does not have enough memory allocated to it to complete this operation. Ask your host to increase the 'memory_limit' varible in php.ini to at least 16M, and preferably 32M.

To temporarily up your limits edit your includes/config.php file and add these lines right under the <?php line:

ini_set('memory_limit', 32 * 1024 * 1024);

I am on a virtual server, but the variable is already set to 16M.

[Grover]

Anyone, or should I submit a support-ticket?

[Steve Machol]

Follow thosse instructions to set it to 32.

[Grover]

Follow thosse instructions to set it to 32.

Okay, I will try that. But I wonder why I should even bother really for one single user? How come one single user is confronted with a problem when posting a new thread, whereas all the other members do not experience any problems at all?

So how can this be a server-issue? Couldn't it be some kind of problem on her PC or something?

[Dilly]

The only way it would occur for one user is if the post is huge, or she is attaching a large file.

[Wayne Luke]

From the error, it appears it is actually building the similar threads for that entry. This means the search is timing out, most likely due to either allowing words with less than 4 characters to be indexed or having a super common word on the forum that returns too many results. As an example, searching for vBulletin on this site would cause problems.

[Dilly]

Didn't look at the error myself, but you are right - building the wordlist. Good pick up.

[Grover]

I have Search Index Minimum Word Length set to : 4

I have Words to be Included Despite Character Limit set to these:

5ar aa adh ala b5 b7 b8 b6 bap dag dht dut emu fda fin fns gse gte hm k33 lee mpb msm no no2 oil oz p5p pez t3 t4 tb4 v6 vit zix

So Search Index Minimum Word Length is set to the default value.

A question : does Words to be Included Despite Character Limit have any effect on Similar Thread Search?

[Freezerator]

Must say there is an increase in this memory limit topics lately. I experianced 2 weeks ago this same error when a user tried to search on the forums, and had to change my memory limit also. Are there things changed in the last couple of versions of vbulletin regarding to search? Some kind of memory leak?

[Wayne Luke]

Must say there is an increase in this memory limit topics lately. I experianced 2 weeks ago this same error when a user tried to search on the forums, and had to change my memory limit also. Are there things changed in the last couple of versions of vbulletin regarding to search? Some kind of memory leak?

No... The changes are primarily to 64 bit OSes and how they allocate memory. Instead of an integer taking 4 bytes, they will take 8 bytes on a 64-bit system. This means you need to allocate more memory for different functions. vBulletin relies on PHP for memory handling and really can't leak memory because it is all unallocated at the end of the page. There may be some objects that aren't freed but that would have caused problems when 3.6.0 was released, not a year later as everyone updates to newer versions of everything.

[Wayne Luke]

A question : does Words to be Included Despite Character Limit have any effect on Similar Thread Search?

Of course... Any of the settings would affect all searches they apply to.

That setting only applies if you are using the built-in vBulletin Search though. It does not apply to fulltext search.

[Grover]

Of course... Any of the settings would affect all searches they apply to.

That setting only applies if you are using the built-in vBulletin Search though. It does not apply to fulltext search.

Ah, I assumed (...) that this setting only applied to manual searches. It is not mentioned in the ACP-Help that this also applies to all other automatic searches like Similar Threads. So for me it was not so obvious.

And yes, I did know these settings only applies to the built-in vB Search.

The only common used words in my list are 'aa' and 'dag'. Maybe that has something to do with it (like you point out above), because manually searching on these words results in the maximum of 500. Buit when I post a test-message with a lot of those words in it, I can not reproduce the error message in any way.

No-one experiences problems with my forum, only this one single user. I will ask her to try it again and send me the contents of her message. If I and my Moderators can post those contents without any problems, then my conclusion is : there is nothing wrong with the server-settings, but it has to be something on her PC... otherwise more people would experience this error?