Apache Crashing When increasing System Specification

Question

I have been using XAMPP on windows for the two year or so and it has been running perfectly, no crashes no problems. (Up until four month ago.)

Around four months ago, we upgraded our server/system to a faster specification.

Here is what the old spec was -

Windows Edition: Windows Server R2 2008 Standard with Service Pack 1

System Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160 @3.0GHZ (2 Processors) (Single Core)

Installed Memory: 7GB

System Type: 64 Bit Operating System

Upgraded Spec

Windows Edition: Windows Server R2 2008 Standard with Service Pack 1

System: Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5680 @3.33GHZ (2 Processors) (Dual Core)

Installed Memory: 8GB

System Type: 64 Bit Operating System

So like I mentioned before, the old spec never had any problems, it never crashed or failed over one and a half years.

As soon as we upgraded the following happened.

Random Apache crashes, making the site un-usable until it is manually restarted. It would throw errors up when accessing phpMyAdmin when apache had crashed too, stopping you from querying the DB. I even uninstalled XAMPP and installed the latest version with PHP7, this still didn't solve the problem.

Heres an example

Notice in .\libraries\common.inc.php#253 Undefined variable: _POST

Backtrace

.\index.php#12: require_once(.\libraries\common.inc.php) Warning in .\libraries\common.inc.php#253 array_merge(): Argument #2 is not an array

Backtrace

.\libraries\common.inc.php#253: array_merge( array, NULL, ) .\index.php#12: require_once(.\libraries\common.inc.php) Notice in .\libraries\common.inc.php#443 Undefined variable: _POST

Backtrace

.\index.php#12: require_once(.\libraries\common.inc.php) Notice in .\libraries\common.inc.php#453 Undefined variable: _POST

Backtrace

.\index.php#12: require_once(.\libraries\common.inc.php) Notice in .\libraries\cleanup.lib.php#26 Undefined variable: _POST

Backtrace

.\libraries\common.inc.php#514: PMA_removeRequestVars(array) .\index.php#12: require_once(.\libraries\common.inc.php) Notice in .\libraries\cleanup.lib.php#31 Undefined variable: _POST

Backtrace

.\libraries\common.inc.php#514: PMA_removeRequestVars(array) .\index.php#12: require_once(.\libraries\common.inc.php)

This can happen from 1-5 times a day, and there are no logs produced to give any reason why it happened. The only way I could find out was go into the event viewer which is extremely vague.

Heres an example --

Faulting application name: httpd.exe, version: 2.4.18.0, time stamp: 0x5667f02e Faulting module name: php7ts.dll, version: 7.0.2.0, time stamp: 0x568d8eb5 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0001ab54 Faulting process id: 0x9bf4 Faulting application start time: 0x01d18f1d3eed5f7e Faulting application path: C:\xampp_\apache\bin\httpd.exe Faulting module path: C:\xampp_\php\php7ts.dll Report Id: a2a226d0-fb64-11e5-b4cb-005056a97cdf

And

Faulting application name: httpd.exe, version: 2.4.18.0, time stamp: 0x5667f02e Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.23313, time stamp: 0x5684289c Exception code: 0xc0000374 Fault offset: 0x000ce00b Faulting process id: 0x3320 Faulting application start time: 0x01d18b1c1e501368 Faulting application path: C:\xampp_\apache\bin\httpd.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll Report Id: 77d4bd4a-f723-11e5-9fc8-005056a97cdf

Just to prove my theory of the faster spec being the issue, I got the Specification lowered back to its original state, and for 2 weeks XAMPP never crashed once, as soon as we but it back to the higher spec, it crashed within hours.

Is there anything you are speicificly meant to do to XAMPP if you upgrade to faster spec?

I am absolutely lost for ideas, I have looked and looked online and can't seem to find anyone who is experiencing the same problems that I am having and why.

If anyone could shed some light on these issues, I would greatly appreciate it!

Answer 1

You went from single to dual core. Check the apache configuration to find out what MPM module is being used. Multiple threads might work on a single core that may no longer work on multicore server.