Admin and ACARS TimeOut Errors

[simpilot]

Admin sections of phpVMS installs have been experiencing very slow page response times in some cases due to the non-response of the phpVMS API server due to 502 errors, just as the forum is at times. The admin section of the sites checks the version against the API server and when there is no response will wait till the connection times out. To stop the automatic check open your local.config.php file and change the version checks to false. If the two lines below do not exist in your local.config.php file then copy and paste them in there.

Config::Set('CHECK_RELEASE_VERSION', false);
Config::Set('CHECK_BETA_VERSION', false);

The following section only applies if your VA is connected to VACentral.

VACentral has been experiencing the same issues as the forum as they are both on the same server, namely 502 errors. When your local phpVMS system is looking for a response from the VACentral server it may not get one, or it may not come prior to your own server timing out for the function.

The immediate fix would just to remove your connection info for VACentral from your local.config.php file but if you want to stay connected to VACentral I would suggest the following. Using the changes below you will have to manually submit your PIREPS to VACentral from the dashboard of your site.

The three items I have been running into with client sites that I manage are:

1 - ACARS systems are timing out, crashing, and freezing during flight. This is due to the fact that every time your ACARS reports to your site, your site in turn reports to VACentral to update the live map on that site. Your local phpVMS system waits for a response from the VACentral server and if it does not get one basically hangs the script and leaves an open connection which in turn can/will cause issues with your ACARS client. To stop the automatic reporting open your ACARSData.class.php file and find the following line (around line 215 in the version I am looking at) and comment it out.

//change
$res = CentralData::send_acars_data($data);

to

//$res = CentralData::send_acars_data($data); 

2 - ACARS and admin functions are timing out during the PIREP submission/approval process. Once again this is caused by the local phpVMS site waiting for a response from VACentral and not getting it. To stop the automatic PIREP submission to VACentral open your PIREPData.class.php file and find the following line (around line 789 in the version I am looking at) and comment it out.

//change
CentralData::send_pirep($pirepid);

to

//CentralData::send_pirep($pirepid);

3 - General page errors when the page has a ranking or other connection to VACentral. Disable the connection, just hard code your rank into the page and check every week or so to update it manually.

[ln-asm]

Thanks simpilot, this helps a lot. Our VA has been struggling a lot lately with people having their ACARS crashed etc after the time out messages, so I really hope this'll fix it

Anders

[Mike]

Fantastic... this has just sorted my problems. Site is running like a rocket now - will just have to manually send the pireps to VA- Central but would much rather do that then have a slow site.

Many Thanks!! :)

[Guest lorathon]

NOTE - I found that even if you have the VACentral setting to false you may still experience this issue. One of my customers had this exact issue. He was NOT a member of VACentral but was still getting the timeouts. When I applied these changes the timeouts stopped. I had also put up a guide for this on my site about 2 weeks ago. This has been an on going issue lately.