ConfigServer Blog » Potential Apache issues due to Zend Optimizer v3.0.0

23 Apr 06 : Potential Apache issues due to Zend Optimizer v3.0.0

Category: cPanel

Posted by: Chirpy

Just had a problem on a clients server which took a while to track down.

Symptoms: If you rebuild apache/php and find that httpd appears to hang without spawning any children and nothing in the error log, this could be the problem. Using an strace on httpd -X shows the binary hanging on apache module loads.

I finally tracked this down to Zend Optimizer v3.0.0 which is available in the current EDGE/CURRENT releases of cPanel ( 10.8.2-EDGE_41) in /scripts/installzendopt. Trick is to edit the script and set:

my $ver = '2.6.2';

Then rerun the script and restart httpd. Hopefully this will help anyone who finds themselves with the same issue.

Comments

Pete Cassetta wrote on 01 May 06 at 16:27:24:

So your recommendation is to stay with Zend 2.6.2 and forgo the upgrade to Zend 3.0.0 at this point? Any idea if this problem is only with PHP4 or also PHP5? I'm only running Zend 3.0.0 (manually installed) on one new server running PHP 5.1.2. I haven't seen this problem at all there. I know the latest ModernBill release candidate requires Zend 3.0.0 if you run it on PHP 5.x, and others may soon require Zend 3.0.0. I think I'm going to try Zend 3.0.0 on all my PHP5 servers, but maybe I'll hold off on the PHP4 servers until we get a resolution in the form of Zend 3.0.1 or whatever.

Chirpy wrote on 01 May 06 at 16:32:15:

Since it's easy enough to downgrade you could try out v3.0.0 and see if that's OK and if not, downgrade to 2.6.2.

I've seen servers running php v4 and php v5 and Zend Opt v3.0.0 without problems, but some where the above problem with v3.0.0 was a real problem. Might have something to do with the php modules you compile in (e.g. "versioning"

Pete Cassetta wrote on 05 May 06 at 14:28:06:

That makes sense. I dropped "versioning" awhile ago because it seems optional or at least none of my customers need it and I ran into some other incompatibility with it (I think PHP5 w/versioning plus Zend was incompatible, but I don't recall 100%).

Ben Faust wrote on 15 Aug 06 at 22:54:29:

Thank you!! We spent the last two hours on the phone with support, who basically said we'd have to reinstall the server box. Then I found your post on Zend 3 issues, and we were back up almost immediately. Thanks again!

Chirpy wrote on 15 Aug 06 at 22:57:36:

Hi Ben,

Glad it helped. It may actually help going up to v3.0.1 now using the same update method described earlier which seems to work now in preference to v3.0.0