By casperl on

Hi,

Has anyone experienced a similar problem to the problem outlined below?

Normally this would not be a Drupal issue, but possibly apache / php / mysql. However, the times of the core.x files coincide within a few minute(s) after the drupal cron.php file is executed.

Here is a plain-vanilla Drupal 4.7.1 site. Occasionally a kernel failure on the hosting server with the related core dump on the root dir of the site would occur. This seems to coincide with the point at which cron.php is being executed on the server. (The Hosting co is also investigating this issue.) Over this period I have gone from Drupal 4.7 RC 1 to 3 to Drupal 4.7 to Drupal 4.7.1. Everytime the upgrade files are uploaded over completely erased directories with the exception of Sites and Files. Thus it is unlikely to be corrupted files or code. 

Operating system Linux
Kernel version	2.6.9-34.106
Apache version 1.3.34 (Unix)
PHP version	4.4.1
MySQL version	4.1.14

 [~/public_html/]# ls -la core.*
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 30560256 Apr 22 06:43 core.10319
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 28491776 Apr 21 09:02 core.12816
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 30617600 Apr 24 20:58 core.13657
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31068160 May 25 02:48 core.15140
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31068160 May 25 02:48 core.15263
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31068160 May 25 02:48 core.15269
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31068160 May 25 02:48 core.15290
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31059968 May 25 02:48 core.15417
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31141888 May 29 08:12 core.17756
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31141888 May 29 08:13 core.18353
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31141888 May 29 08:13 core.18417
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31145984 May 29 08:13 core.18440
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31145984 May 25 13:30 core.28422
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31150080 May 25 13:30 core.28852
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31145984 May 25 13:31 core.29025
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 31150080 May 25 13:31 core.29039
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 39137280 Apr 25 02:12 core.8543
-rw-------  1 kroon kroon 30466048 Apr 24 08:53 core.9956
⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

adixon’s picture

adixon commented

You'd have to work pretty hard to make drupal responsible for a core dump. From your notes, it looks like the drupal cron is certainly triggering the dump, but it can't be held responsible ... that would probably be php as the most likely culprit. Looking at where in the cron it's dumping might provide some clues, of course, especially if you've got a non-standard module implementing hook_cron.

michael_lessard_micles.biz’s picture

michael_lessard_micles.biz commented

I have the same problem on almost all my Drupal sites: core.x dumps of 20M each.

Please, can someone simply share a clue/tip on how to figure out which cron hook or php settings is the cause.

Thank you,
Michael Lessard
webmaster of Quebec City 'democracy in action' calendar and of the Siriel-Media - world citizens sharing news about "policies of mass destruction" (crimes against humanity, crimes of war and violent policies against civilian populations).

Michael Lessard
webmaster of Quebec City "democracy in action" media

vako’s picture

vako commented

Using Drupal 6.6 and I have seven 50MB core.x files in my root folder and they are multiplying. I run cron on an hourly basis.

vm’s picture

vm commented

Vako,

You are responding to every one of these types of threads explaining what you are experiencing but not seeming to provide any more clues than the original poster.

Drupal doesn't create core dumps, something on your system isn't quite right.

you can delete the files and stop cron for a little while. See if the dumps are still happening. If so you may want to talk to your host.

vako’s picture

vako commented

Sorry about that. I was just trying to find a solution. I will experiment with it and if I find any solution I will post it at one of those posts.

vm’s picture

vm commented

One of the things I'd certainly do is update from 6.6 to 6.9.

Another situation that could possibly cause something of this nature is a rouge module. If you continue to get them, it would benefit to disable modules one by one to see if it's something relevant.

vako’s picture

vako commented

Upgrading to ver 6.9 didn't help, I am still getting the dumps.
The dumps are happening randomly, I had two of them today at a 5hr interval. My cron job runs on an hourly basis and don't think that's the issue.
I will keep monitoring the time first and see if it coincides with any site activity.
I have 125 modules and prefer to delete the core files manually on a weekly basis instead of disabling them one-by-one and waiting for a day...

thanks!

vm’s picture

vm commented

I'd highly doubt its an activity causing this.

The more I read about this the more it looks like it could be a module issue.

125 modules or not something is wrong with your install. and deleting the files isn't disbaling them, they will still be enabled in the database even if the files are removed from the system.

as a side note: 125 modules seems like alot of modules to be running on a single install.

vako’s picture

vako commented

Actually it's a very simple site: www.keghart.com. In the modules section there are a lot of dependencies which make the number higher, but in reality I am using few options only. e.g.: under the CCK section there are 16 modules that are linked.
Whenever I have time I will disable modules and check the system.

vako’s picture

vako commented

Here's a probably solution:
The core dump files might be caused by the print module's PDF option. Drupal's 'normal' cache can't handle PDFs, so if you have that option enabled, it might be the culprit that creates the dump files.
There is an update that solves this issue: http://drupal.org/node/362121