XF 2.0 My site has messed up

[JoyFreak]

I don't know how and why this has happened as it was working fine yesterday but all of the sudden, my site won't load properly and as seen in the screenshots provided is how it looks like now. Even when I loaded it on desktop and mobile, it does the same thing. On the mobile, i refreshed and it worked fine but on the desktop I have refreshed several times now and still the same. I know someone from ThemeHouse went on my site like a week ago and encountered it too but was working fine for me at the time. Why is this? Is it to do with an add-on? Or with my hosting? Or with Xenforo? I am confused.

Thanks.

 

[JoyFreak]

Ok so I had a feeling it could be related to one of the add-ons: "[XenConcept] User Activity (Users Viewed, Viewing Thread, Viewing Forum) 2.0.6" as when I disabled it and refreshed my site, it started working again. I don't know if it is a coincidence as when I enabled the add-on again, my site was still working. I am seriously confused. Is there a way to really find out the cause of this?

 

[Mike]

Are there any server errors logged? At a guess, one of the add-ons is causing invalid LESS which can't be parsed. This should be logged in the control panel.

 

[JoyFreak]

Hi, there are no server errors logged as far as im aware. What could it be then?

 

[Mike]

As it's not happening currently, it's hard to say specifically, but if it changes based on an add-on being toggled, the first place to check would probably be with the add-on author.

 

[XeOn]

After looking at the screenshots you have provided there were two things which caught my attention. I noticed on your favorites tab you have two websites (NulledTeam and XenForoRocks) which both provide nulled releases, themes, add-ons, etc... which I do not recommending using at all! Both sites are known to have provided shells and certain vulnerabilities within the add-ons/themes they have up for download which can lead to exploitation.

If you have used any add-ons or themes from either of those websites I would recommend removing them from your site as well as the FTP files from your hosting server and make sure that there is nothing in the files which may look fishy or out of place.

 

[JoyFreak]

Hello, thank you for your concern. I do not have anything nulled on my forums this includes the themes/add-ons too. I have them saved them from a while back and used it for other purposes. But thank you for sharing that, I have deleted them off my nav bar. I also removed the original photos because it has the name of my university on there too which I do not wish to disclose.

 

[imno007]

Ok so I had a feeling it could be related to one of the add-ons: "[XenConcept] User Activity (Users Viewed, Viewing Thread, Viewing Forum) 2.0.6" as when I disabled it and refreshed my site, it started working again. I don't know if it is a coincidence as when I enabled the add-on again, my site was still working. I am seriously confused. Is there a way to really find out the cause of this?

That addon can definitely have an impact on performance, causing your site not to load, if you have certain options enabled and have your php memory_limit set low. Make sure you have these two options disabled if the memory limit is set to less than 512MB:

• Enable viewing forum in home
• Enable viewing in Forum Thread List

 

[JoyFreak]

That addon can definitely have an impact on performance, causing your site not to load, if you have certain options enabled and have your php memory_limit set low. Make sure you have these two options disabled if the memory limit is set to less than 512MB:

• Enable viewing forum in home
• Enable viewing in Forum Thread List

Where can I check the memory limit? And can this be increased for the other features to work accordingly?

 

[imno007]

Look for php.ini in your directories, but if you're on shared hosting chances are you won't have access to this file and you'll just have to ask your host.

EDIT: And yes, it can be changed. Of course your host will have to okay it, if you're on shared hosting. But if you disable those two options I mentioned, you'll probably be fine. Actually, you should be good with just "Enable viewing in Forum Thread List" disabled - that's the one that really burns memory. The other one doesn't matter much, but I also don't know why you'd want it enabled.

 

[JoyFreak]

Look for php.ini in your directories, but if you're on shared hosting chances are you won't have access to this file and you'll just have to ask your host.

EDIT: And yes, it can be changed. Of course your host will have to okay it, if you're on shared hosting. But if you disable those two options I mentioned, you'll probably be fine. Actually, you should be good with just "Enable viewing in Forum Thread List" disabled - that's the one that really burns memory. The other one doesn't matter much, but I also don't know why you'd want it enabled.

Just checked with my provider and they said I am currently set at 768MB memory limit. So why am I having this issue then if it's higher than 512MB as you said?

Anyway I have disabled the "Enable viewing in Forum Thread List" as you suggested AND the "Enable viewing forum in home" feature as it doesn't work without the enabling the "Viewing in Forum Thread List" anyway.

Thanks.

 

[imno007]

Well, 512 was the minimum I recommended really to be able to use it all, because that's the highest I set it before deciding it just wasn't worth it, because even at that setting I noticed the impact of it. And if you're still seeing a negative impact at 768, I guess it's safe to say that you've made the right choice.

 

[XeOn]

I highly doubt this issue has anything to do with memory limiting... I would suggest checking your browsers console if this issue happens again to see if there are any errors. However, if there are no errors within your browsers console, I would recommend going through your add-on and theme FTP and XML files and check that there isn't anything that could potentially be affecting the frontend of your website.

 

[imno007]

I highly doubt this issue has anything to do with memory limiting... I would suggest checking your browsers console if this issue happens again to see if there are any errors. However, if there are no errors within your browsers console, I would recommend going through your add-on and theme FTP and XML files and check that there isn't anything that could potentially be affecting the frontend of your website.

I never saw any errors, aside from the 500 errors when the site would go down. It was my hosting provider who looked at it and told me the addon needed more memory and recommended the limit increase. All I can tell you is that my website literally would not load after enabling that option: after navigating the site for a few minutes I'd end up with blank pages and 500 errors. Immediately after disabling, the site would be fine. After increasing the memory limit and reenabling the option, the site never again went offline, but page loads were sometimes over 8 seconds. And this was tested with all other addons disabled. As soon as "Enable viewing in Forum Thread List" is disabled, everything returns to normal - and I mean it's an immediate difference. So whatever the reason, it definitely causes a problem for me personally, so I'll leave it disabled. Everything else works fine, though, so I'm not complaining. That wasn't a feature I was really looking for in the first place.